Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Delicious Sponge Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Prepare brick-shaped tins by greasing them.
Make a paste with flour and water, roll it out, and line the tins.
Make the batter
Beat the egg whites until very stiff.
Beat the yolks until they are bubbly and fine.
Add the sugar to the yolks and beat until dissolved.
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.
Sift in the flour and fold until just combined.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into the lined tins.
Bake for nearly an hour.
Do not remove the paste until ready to serve.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour 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
- Eggs
- Whipped whites and yolks provide the airy structure that lifts the cake.
- Sugar
- Dissolved into the yolks, it sweetens the cake and adds tenderness.
- Flour
- Sets during baking to give the cake its structure.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until very stiff. Stiff whites trap air that expands in the oven and gives the sponge its lift. Under-beaten whites collapse, and over-folding then knocks out the air, leaving a dense cake.
“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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