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Dessert

Lemon Sponge

A light lemon-flavored sponge made with cornflour, milk, sugar, eggs, butter, and lemon zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lemon Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Gradually mix the milk with the cornflour in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the butter and sugar, boiling for eight minutes while stirring continuously.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks and lemon juice, then allow to cool.

Finish and set

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold into the mixture.

  2. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until firm.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornflour
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard as its starch swells when heated.
Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the mixture, and yolks add richness and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps keep the custard smooth and glossy.
Lemons
Juice adds acidity and bright flavour, while the rind adds aroma.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornflour thickens into custard.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten egg whites gently. Stiff egg white foam traps air that gives lightness. Stirring or deflating it vigorously knocks out the air, so the dessert turns dense rather than airy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, butter, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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