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Dessert

Plain Sponge Cake

A light sponge cake made with eggs, powdered sugar, flour, baking powder, boiling water, and salt.

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

Plain Sponge Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the powdered sugar until well combined.

  2. Gradually stir in 1 cup of sifted flour.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Sift 1 cup of flour with 1 teaspoon of baking powder and fold it in.

  5. Slowly stir in the boiling water a little at a time.

  6. Add salt and do not add more flour, even if the mixture seems thin.

Bake

  1. Bake in shallow tins at 400°F (200°C) until done.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. 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 give lift and an airy structure, while the yolks add richness and colour.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps tenderise the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to a stiff froth hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so folding gently keeps the batter light.

“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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