Name: Cream Sponge Cake
Ingredients: 2 large eggs; ½ cup sweet cream; 1 cup white sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 cups sifted flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 teaspoon lemon essence

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.

Mix the batter

Break the eggs into a teacup.
Fill the teacup with sweet cream.
Add the sugar and salt to a pan.
Mix in the sifted flour, baking powder, and lemon essence.

Bake

Pour the batter into a square baking tin.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 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.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 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: Add structure and richness, and help trap air to give the cake its body.
Sweet cream: Adds moisture and richness, producing a tender crumb.
White sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
Flour: Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.