Skip to main content
Dessert

Roll Jelly Cake

A sponge cake rolled with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Roll Jelly Cake

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 the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat together the sugar and eggs until light and fluffy.

  3. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar, then add to the egg mixture.

  4. Stir in vanilla extract to taste.

Bake and roll

  1. Pour the batter into a square pan and bake until golden.

  2. Spread jelly over the cake while it is still hot.

  3. Roll the cake in a cloth to shape it.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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
Beaten with sugar to trap air, giving the cake its light structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when beaten with eggs, helps create a light, airy batter.

The step that matters

Spread jelly over the cake while it is still hot.. A warm sponge is soft and flexible, so it can roll without cracking. If it cools fully, it becomes brittle and may split when rolled.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

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

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes