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Dessert

Roll Jelly Cake

A baked cake rolled with jelly after baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Roll Jelly Cake

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the eggs and brown sugar together until well combined.

  3. Mix the cream of tartar and baking soda into the milk, then stir in the lemon extract.

  4. Add the milk mixture to the egg and sugar mixture, then fold in the flour.

  5. Spread the batter thinly on a long baking pan.

Bake and roll

  1. Bake until done.

  2. Immediately spread jelly on top and roll the cake up.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 richness as they set and bind the batter.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch framework that gives the cake its body.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that lightens the cake.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a caramel note while tenderising the crumb.

The step that matters

Immediately spread jelly on top and roll the cake up.. The cake is flexible only while warm; once it cools it stiffens and cracks when rolled. Rolling promptly while the crumb is still pliable prevents breaking and keeps the spiral neat.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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