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Dessert

Cream Sponge Cake

A light cake made with flour, sugar, eggs, sweet cream, baking soda, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine flour, cream of tartar, powdered sugar, and salt.

Make the batter

  1. In the measuring cup used for flour and sugar, break in the eggs and beat for 2 minutes.

  2. Fill the cup with sweet cream and add it to the flour mixture.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in hot water and add to the mixture.

  4. Beat well and pour into a prepared baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake until golden and slice the top.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the sponge together as it sets.
Eggs
Trap air when beaten and set the crumb, giving the cake its lift and body.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the beaten eggs and works with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and fat, giving a tender crumb and richer flavor.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and contributes to a fine, tender crumb and browning.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs. Beating the eggs for the full two minutes traps air that gives the sponge its lift. Under-beaten eggs leave a dense cake, since the air bubbles are what expand in the oven.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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