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Dessert

Raspberry Sponge

A gelatin-based dessert made with raspberries, sugar, lemon juice, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

  1. Soak the gelatin in ½ cup of the water until soft.

  2. Wash the raspberries and add half the sugar to them.

  3. Boil the remaining sugar and water gently for twenty minutes.

  4. Rub the raspberries through a sieve.

Make the sponge

  1. Add the gelatin to the boiling syrup and remove from heat; then add the raspberry juice.

  2. Place the mixture in a pan of ice water and beat for five minutes.

  3. Add the egg whites and beat until the mixture begins to thicken.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into molds and refrigerate to harden.

  2. Serve with sugar and cream.

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. Egg + lemontop 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, colour and fruit pulp for the sponge.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to give a light, airy, foamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the raspberry mixture and balances the tartness of the fruit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the raspberry flavour.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture over ice water. The mixture must cool and thicken just enough before the egg whites go in. If it is still warm, the foam collapses, and if it sets too far, it will not whip into a light sponge.

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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