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Dessert

Sponge Drops

Sponge drops are small cakes made from sugar, flour, eggs, and leavening, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Sponge Drops

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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs with the sugar until light.

  2. Stir in the sifted flour mixed with the cream of tartar.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it last.

  4. Flavor with lemon or vanilla.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop the mixture onto buttered baking sheets.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. Serve with ice 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and egg 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
Beaten to trap air, giving the drops a light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the beaten eggs hold their foam.
Sifted flour
Provides the starch and protein that set into the cake structure as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the drops rise.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide gas when it meets the acid, leavening the batter.

The step that matters

Add the dissolved baking soda last. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the acid in the batter. Adding it last and mixing gently keeps that gas in the batter, so it expands in the oven instead of escaping before baking.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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