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Dessert

To Make Small Sponge Cakes

A light cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, and flavoring, baked in small tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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To Make Small Sponge Cakes

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Make Small Sponge Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sift the flour and pound the sugar until fine.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until well combined.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture.

  4. Gradually add the flour and flavoring, mixing just until combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Grease the tins with butter and pour in the batter.

  2. Sprinkle a little sugar over the cakes.

  3. Bake until pale and set, about 10-15 minutes.

  4. Remove from tins while warm and let cool upside down.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 trap air, giving the cakes their light, airy structure as they set.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set on baking, giving the sponge its structure once the batter is cooked.
Loaf sugar
Sugar sweetens the cakes and helps the batter stay soft and tender as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites intact. Stirring or deflating them would make the sponge dense instead of light.

“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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