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Dessert

Plain Sponge Cake

A light, airy cake made from beaten eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, water, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Plain Sponge Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the powdered sugar until well combined.

  2. Gradually stir in 1 cup of sifted flour.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Sift 2 teaspoons of baking powder into the remaining 1 cup of flour and fold it in.

  5. Slowly stir in the boiling water a little at a time.

  6. Add salt and do not add more flour, even if the mixture seems thin.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into shallow tins and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 foam give the sponge its light, airy structure, while yolks add richness.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking to form the cake's firm crumb structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, making the batter rise and become light.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a fine, tender crumb.
Boiling water
Adds moisture and loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the sponge. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates the foam and produces a dense, flat cake.

“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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