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Sponge Cake

A light sponge cake made by beating eggs and folding in flour.

Recipe by Fannie Merritt Farmer · Structured by ReelsMeals

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Historic recipe · 1910

The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

by Fannie Merritt Farmer · Public domain

Written for the kitchens of 1910. Amounts and oven terms follow the book; the note below the method helps translate them.

Cook Time

1 hr

Ingredients

  • 6 egg yolks
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1/2 lemon, rind grated
  • 6 egg whites
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. 1
    Beat the egg yolks until thick and lemon-colored, adding the sugar gradually while continuing to beat with a Dover egg-beater.
  2. 2
    Add the lemon juice and grated lemon rind to the yolk mixture.
  3. 3
    Beat the egg whites until stiff and dry.
  4. 4
    When the whites are partially mixed with the yolks, remove the beater and carefully cut and fold in the flour that has been mixed and sifted with the salt.
  5. 5
    Bake for one hour in a slow oven, using an angel cake pan or a deep narrow pan.

Source and licence

From The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer (Little, Brown, and Company, 1910). The book is in the public domain.

We rewrote the method as numbered steps and listed the ingredients one per line. Amounts, ingredients and oven terms are as printed in 1910.

Cooking from a 1910 recipe

Measure cups and spoons level, as the cookbooks of the time did.

Ovens then had no thermostat. A common modern guide: slow oven 300–325°F (150–165°C), moderate 350–375°F (175–190°C), hot 400–425°F (200–220°C), very hot 450–475°F (230–245°C).

Tags

cakespongedesserthistoric recipe

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ReelsMeals turns this Boston Cooking-School Cook Book recipe into a kitchen-friendly checklist while keeping the original source attached.

Cooking context

1 hr estimated total time.

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This recipe was printed in 1910, before modern food-safety advice. Follow current guidance for canning, preserving, and cooking meat and eggs, and check allergens before cooking.