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Dessert

Jelly Roll

A sweet cake roll made with coffee sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs, baked and spread with jelly.

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 ↓

Jelly Roll

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, combine coffee sugar, sifted flour, and baking powder.

  3. Break in the eggs and beat the mixture well.

  4. Pour the batter into square tins.

Bake and roll

  1. Bake until light brown.

  2. Turn the cake out onto a clean surface and spread with jelly.

  3. Roll the cake carefully and wrap each roll in a clean napkin.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Coffee + flourtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg 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
Bind the batter and provide structure and lift as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Sifted flour
Forms the cake's structure once heated and set by the eggs.
Coffee sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Rolling the cake. Rolling must happen while the cake is still warm and pliable; once it cools, it cracks and loses its shape. Rolling it carefully keeps the sponge from 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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