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Dessert

Sponge Cake

A light, airy cake made by folding beaten egg whites into a sugar and egg yolk mixture, then baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sponge Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a warm basin, place the sugar and keep it warm.

Make the batter

  1. Add the yolks of the eggs to the sugar and beat for 15 minutes.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  3. Gradually fold the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture, alternating with the flour. Blend well to avoid streaks.

Bake

  1. Grease a tin with butter or oil, then pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour, or longer depending on the depth of the cake.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Whites trapped as a stiff froth give the sponge its light, airy structure.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the beaten yolks and whites.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Folding gently preserves the air beaten into the whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the sponge dense, and blending well avoids streaks of flour or unmixed egg.

“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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