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Dessert

Roll Jelly Cake

A light, sweet cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, milk, and flavoring, baked and rolled while warm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Gradually add the flour and cream of tartar, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the milk and your choice of flavoring.

  4. Spread the batter evenly on a baking sheet.

Bake and roll

  1. Bake for about 10-15 minutes until golden.

  2. Remove from the oven and roll the cake while warm.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and milk 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
Whipped with sugar to trap air, giving the sponge its light structure.
Flour
Forms the set crumb structure that holds the cake together once baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the beaten eggs hold their foam.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg foam, helping it stay airy during mixing and baking.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter, keeping the sponge soft and pliable for rolling.

The step that matters

Roll the cake while warm. Warm sponge is flexible, so it can be rolled without cracking. Once it cools, the structure stiffens and it tends to split.

“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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