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Dessert

Raspberry Sponge

A chilled raspberry dessert made with gelatin, sugar, lemon juice, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Raspberry Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Wash and mash the raspberries, then strain through a sieve.

  2. Add the sugar and lemon juice to the strained raspberries.

Set the sponge

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of water until dissolved, then mix it into the raspberry mixture.

  2. Let the mixture stand until it thickens to a jelly-like consistency.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Raspberries
Provide the main flavour and colour, and the fruit pulp that forms the body of the sponge.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps balance the tartness of the raspberries.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the raspberry flavour and sharpens the sweetness.
Knox's gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they lighten the mixture and give the sponge its airy texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped and deflated gently; stirring vigorously knocks out the foam, so the sponge turns dense instead of light. Fold slowly, and add the mixture only once the gelatine has begun to thicken, so the whites are not weighed down or lost.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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