Lesson plan
Sponge cake
Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Most sponge cakes contain egg yolks, but some do not, such as angel food cake. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife (1615). The cake was more like a cracker: thin and crisp. The modern sponge cakes arose when bakers started using beaten eggs as a leavening agent in the mid-19th century. The creation of baking powder by a British food manufacturer in 1843 allowed the addition of butter, permitting the creation of the Victoria sponge. In American baking terms, a sponge cake is different from a butter cake.
Article summary
Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Most sponge cakes contain egg yolks, but some do not, such as angel food cake. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife (1615). The cake was more like a cracker: thin and crisp. The modern sponge cakes arose when bakers started using beaten eggs as a leavening agent in the mid-19th century. The creation of baking powder by a British food manufacturer in 1843 allowed the addition of butter, permitting the creation of the Victoria sponge. In American baking terms, a sponge cake is different from a butter cake.
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.