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Sponge Drops

Small batter drops fried until browned, then added to soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓

Sponge Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg until light.

  2. Gradually stir in the flour.

  3. Add the sugar and salt.

  4. Sift in the baking powder and mix well.

  5. The batter should be light and spongy enough to drop easily from a spoon.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls into deep hot fat, browning nicely all over.

  2. Add to soup when serving.

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 + sugartop 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

Egg
Whisking adds air, giving the batter lightness and structure as it sets.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that set the drops into a firm, cohesive shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the drops rise and turn spongy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into deep hot fat. Hot fat sets the outside of each drop quickly, so it browns and puffs instead of soaking up oil and spreading flat.

“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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