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Dessert

Cream Sponge with Icing

A light sponge cake layered with cream and iced with icing sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Sponge with Icing

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the eggs and sugar together for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gently fold into the egg mixture.

  5. Divide the batter into two greased round cake pans (8 inches in diameter).

  6. Bake for about 7 minutes until golden.

Ice and fill

  1. For the icing, mix the icing sugar with the egg white and beat for 10 minutes.

  2. Add a few drops of vanilla essence and spread smoothly on top of one sponge layer.

  3. For the cream filling, combine the cream, a little less milk, sugar, and vanilla essence.

  4. Spread the cream mixture between the two sponge layers.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Trap air when beaten, giving the sponge its light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the sponge and helps stabilise the beaten eggs.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the sponge rise in the oven.
Icing sugar
Sweetens the icing and gives it a smooth, spreadable body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the filling between the layers.

The step that matters

Fold the flour gently into the eggs. The sponge relies on air beaten into the eggs. Vigorous mixing deflates the batter, which makes the cake dense and flat after baking.

“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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