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Dessert

Chocolate Roll

A chocolate roll made from a batter of sugar, flour, eggs, and a chocolate filling thickened with water and corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Roll

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the sponge

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the yolks and beat thoroughly.

  2. Mix in the sugar, flour, cold water, baking powder, and vanilla.

  3. Bake in thin layers until set.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, cook the chocolate, water, corn starch, and sugar until it thickens like custard.

  2. Spread the filling while hot on the baked layers.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Vanilla + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Whipped whites give the sponge its airy structure, and the yolks add richness and color.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the sponge layers together once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and stay light.
Sugar
Sweetens the layers and helps the whipped egg foam stay stable.
Chocolate
Gives the filling its flavor and deep color.
Corn starch
Thickens the chocolate filling into a custard-like texture as it cooks.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be whipped to a stiff foam before the yolks are added, because that trapped air is what lifts the sponge. Underbeaten whites or deflating them during mixing leaves thin, dense layers.

“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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