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Dessert

Strawberry Sponge

A chilled strawberry sponge cake made with gelatin, whipped egg whites, and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Strawberry Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the strawberries and syrup

  1. Remove the tops from the strawberries and mash them.

  2. Mix the mashed strawberries with 1 cup of caster sugar.

  3. In a saucepan, combine ½ cup of crushed loaf sugar and ½ cup of water, and boil gently for 20 minutes.

  4. Soak 1 ounce of gelatin in ½ cup of water for 2 hours.

  5. Mix the soaked gelatin with the syrup and remove from heat.

  6. Pass the strawberry mixture through a fine sieve.

  7. Combine the sieved strawberry mixture with the syrup.

Make the sponge

  1. Place the mixture in a bowl on ice and beat for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the whipped egg whites.

  3. Continue beating until the mixture thickens.

  4. Pour the sponge into molds.

  5. Let the sponge set.

Serve

  1. Turn the sponge out onto dishes.

  2. Dust with caster sugar.

  3. Pour whipped cream around.

  4. Serve.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Strawberries
Provide the main flavour and fruit body of the sponge.
Gelatine
Sets the strawberry mixture into a firm, sliceable sponge as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and give the sponge its light, airy texture.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the strawberries and helps stabilise the whipped structure.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture until it thickens. Beating over ice cools the mixture so it thickens before the gelatine sets it. Stop too early and the foam collapses; too late and the sponge may set unevenly.

“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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