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Dessert

Berwick Sponge Cake

A sponge cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, water, salt, lemon rind and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Berwick Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs for 2 minutes.

  2. Add the sugar and beat for 5 minutes.

  3. Mix in the flour and baking powder, then beat for 2 minutes.

  4. Add the cold water and beat for 1 minute.

  5. Sift in the salt with the flour and beat for 3 minutes.

  6. Add the grated rind and juice of the lemon, then beat for 1 minute.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into three loaf pans and bake.

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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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
Whipped with air, they form the foam that gives the sponge its lift and open crumb.
Sugar
Beaten with the eggs, it helps stabilise the foam and adds sweetness and tenderness.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking, giving the sponge its structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping it rise in the oven.
Lemon
Its rind and juice add aroma and a bright acidity that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and sugar fully. Beating the eggs and sugar fully traps air that forms the foam lifting the sponge. Under-beating leaves a dense crumb, and beating too hard after the flour is added knocks air out. Keep each beating time as written.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. 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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