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 ↓
Sponge Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Weigh the eggs with their shells.
Measure out sugar equal to the weight of the eggs.
Measure out flour equal to half the weight of the eggs.
Make the batter
Beat the yolks and sugar together until creamy.
Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the yolk and sugar mixture.
Lightly mix in the flour.
Bake
Pour the batter into a baking pan and bake until done.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Whipped whites and yolks provide the structure and lift that make the sponge airy.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the beaten yolks and whites.
- Flour
- Gives the set cake its structure once baked.
The step that matters
Folding the whipped whites into the yolk mixture. Stirring too vigorously knocks out the air trapped in the whipped whites, so the cake rises less and turns dense. Fold gently with a large spatula, cutting down through the middle and turning the bowl.
“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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