Name: Another Way to Make Spunge Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound dried flour; ¾ pound finely-pounded loaf sugar; 7 eggs, yolks and whites separated; grated peel and juice of 1 lemon; 1 tablespoon rose water; 1 tablespoon brandy; ½ ounce caraway seeds, dried and pounded

Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Spunge Cake

Ingredients

1 pound dried flour
¾ pound finely-pounded loaf sugar
7 eggs, yolks and whites separated
grated peel and juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon rose water
1 tablespoon brandy
½ ounce caraway seeds, dried and pounded

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and whites separately until fluffy.
Butter a cake tin and line it with buttered paper.

Make the batter

Combine the dried flour, sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, rose water, brandy, and caraway seeds.
Mix all ingredients together for 1 hour using your hands.

Bake

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and sift powdered sugar over the top.
Bake for 1 hour.

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.

Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lemon + carawaytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together270 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,174 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Rose + carawaytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together93 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Whipped yolks and whites trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
Dried flour: Flour provides the starch and gluten network that sets the cake's crumb.
Sugar: Sugar sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Lemon: Lemon peel and juice add aroma and a bright acidity to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs until fluffy. Whipping the yolks and whites separately gives the sponge its rise, so the foam must be light and full of air before it is folded into the batter.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, egg, rose, brandy, caraway):

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, rose, brandy, caraway. 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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Lemon Ice147 recipes

Lemon Sherbet103 recipes

Brandy Peaches68 recipes

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Another Way to Make Spunge Cake