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Dessert

Common Jelly-roll Sponge

A sponge cake rolled with jelly, made from sugar, eggs, water, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Common Jelly-roll Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat eggs and sugar together until well combined.

  3. Gradually add warm water while continuing to beat.

  4. In a separate bowl, mix baking powder with flour.

  5. Combine flour mixture with egg mixture until smooth.

Bake and roll

  1. Spread batter onto parchment paper in a baking pan.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

  3. Wet the paper slightly.

  4. Spread jelly over sponge and roll up carefully.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour 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
Provide structure and lift through whisked proteins that trap air in the batter.
Flour
Forms the main structure that sets the sponge as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beaten eggs hold air and stay tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the sponge rises and becomes light.
Warm water
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it spreads evenly.

The step that matters

Roll up the sponge carefully. Once baked, the sponge is hot and can crack if rolled too tightly or too late. Wetting the paper slightly helps the cake release and roll without tearing.

“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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