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Dessert

Cream Sponge Cake

A sponge cake with a sweet milk cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream 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.

Make the sponge

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until thick.

  3. Add the cold water, flour, and baking powder; mix well.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  5. Pour the batter into layers and bake until golden.

Make the cream

  1. For the cream, heat the sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  3. Once the milk boils, stir in the yolk and cornstarch mixture.

  4. Boil for 3 minutes, then remove from heat.

  5. Add the sugar and beaten egg white; let cool.

Assemble

  1. Spread the cream between the cake layers.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Egg whites give the sponge its light, airy structure, while yolks add richness and colour.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the sponge's rise once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become light.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream as it heats, giving it a smooth, spreadable body.
Sweet milk
Forms the base of the cream, adding moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolk and cornstarch mixture into the boiling milk. Cornstarch must be heated to boil to thicken fully. Adding the yolks to hot milk without constant stirring can scramble them, so stir steadily while pouring in the mixture.

“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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