Skip to main content
Dessert

Treacle Sponge

A steamed sponge cake made with bread crumbs, suet, egg, and golden syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Treacle Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

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. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, suet, salt, egg, and baking powder, and mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for about 1 hour until cooked through.

  2. Once steamed, pour golden syrup over the sponge as a sauce.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + syruptop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,995 recipes
  3. Bread + syruptop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure of the sponge.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the sponge moist and tender.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps give it structure as it cooks.
Magic baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the sponge so it rises and becomes light.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and a rich, moist flavour to the finished sponge.

The step that matters

Steam until cooked through. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the sponge through without drying it. Lifting the lid too often or letting the water run low causes uneven cooking and a heavy, dense texture.

“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.

More treacle sponge recipes

Cake 5Pudding 3 See all 3 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes