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Dessert

Sunshine Cake

A light sponge cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, cream of tartar, salt, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Sunshine Cake

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Sunshine Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Sift and measure the flour and sugar, then set aside the sifted flour and sugar.

  3. Separate the eggs, placing the whites in a mixing bowl and the yolks in a small bowl.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks until very stiff.

  2. Whip the egg whites to foam, add cream of tartar, and whip until very stiff.

  3. Gradually add sugar to the egg whites and beat in the sugar.

  4. Add the yolks and flavoring to the mixture and beat in the yolks and flavoring.

  5. Fold the flour lightly into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a cake pan.

  2. Bake immediately for 20 to 40 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 trap air and provide the cake's light, airy structure, while yolks add richness.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and stabilizes the whipped egg whites, helping them hold their shape.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten framework that sets the cake's structure as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping foam stay stable and resist collapsing while whipping.

The step that matters

Fold the flour lightly into the mixture. Overmixing after adding flour develops gluten and deflates the whipped air, producing a dense, tough cake instead of a light one.

“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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