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Dessert

Chocolate Sponge Cake

A light chocolate sponge cake made with shortening, sugar, eggs, cocoa, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the Koh‑nut, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Stir in the cold water.

  4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa, and cinnamon, then fold into the mixture.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into muffin pans and bake for 20 minutes.

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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cocoa powder + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together331 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Flour + cocoa powdertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,244 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + cocoa powdertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Egg yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites add lift and an airy crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise and become light.
Shortening
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds tenderness and moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, browned crumb.
Cocoa powder
Gives the cake its chocolate flavour and dark colour.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so the cake bakes up denser and flatter. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

“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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