Skip to main content
Dessert

Sponge Sandwich

A light sponge cake sandwich with raspberry jam filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sponge Sandwich

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs and beat well.

  3. Sift the flour with the baking soda and cream of tartar into the mixture.

  4. Mix in the milk and flavor with the essence of lemon.

Assemble and bake

  1. Divide the batter between two sandwich tins.

  2. Spread a layer of raspberry jam over the batter in each tin.

  3. Cover with the remaining batter.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 30 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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Lemon + raspberrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the sponge together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the sponge rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to produce lift.
Butter
Traps air when creamed with sugar and adds richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Sugar beaten into butter forms tiny air pockets that expand in the oven, so under-creaming leaves a dense sponge with less rise.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, butter, sugar, egg, milk, raspberry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, butter, sugar, egg, milk, raspberry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesRaspberry JamRaspberry Jam150 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes