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Dessert

Swiss KoH

A Swiss jam roll made from eggs, sugar, flour, and preserve, dusted with loaf sugar.

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 ↓

Swiss KoH

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sponge

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

  2. Whip the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Gently stir in the flour.

  4. Spread the mixture evenly on a sheet of white paper, about 15 inches square.

Bake and roll

  1. Bake for a few minutes until set.

  2. Let it cool for a minute, then turn it upside down onto a cloth.

  3. Moisten the paper slightly and peel it off.

  4. Spread the roll with your chosen preserve.

  5. Carefully roll it up, wash the outside with egg, and roll in loaf sugar dust.

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. Flour + raspberrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,262 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + raspberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

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

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
Whipped to trap air, giving the sponge its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the sponge and helps stabilise the whipped egg foam.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that set the sponge once baked.
Preserve
Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and moisture to the rolled sponge.

The step that matters

Turn the sponge out while still warm and pliable. Once the sponge cools fully it becomes stiff and brittle and can crack when rolled. Rolling it gently while slightly warm, with the paper moistened, lets it bend without splitting.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

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