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 ↓
Sponge Cake
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Brush a sponge-cake mold with salad oil and dust with a mixture of caster sugar and flour.
Make the batter
In a saucepan, combine water and loaf sugar, bring to a boil, and boil for 2 minutes.
Whisk the eggs in a large bowl and pour the boiling syrup over them.
Continue whisking for about 6 minutes until thick and creamy.
Gently fold in the flour using an iron spoon.
Bake
Pour the mixture into the prepared mold and bake for 1 hour.
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
- Whisked with the hot syrup to trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
- Loaf sugar
- Dissolved into water to make a syrup that sweetens the cake and helps give it a fine, tender crumb.
- Vienna or pastry flour
- Folded in last to set the cake's structure once baked, without deflating the foam.
The step that matters
Folding in the flour. Flour is added to a foam full of trapped air. Stirring vigorously knocks out that air and makes the cake dense, so the flour should be folded in gently.
“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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