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.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until well combined.
Sift in the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; mix until smooth.
Spread the batter thinly on long baking sheets.
Bake and roll
Bake until golden, then immediately turn the cakes out of the tins.
Flavor your jelly and spread it over the cake.
Roll the cake up immediately to prevent breaking.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 with sugar to trap air, giving the cake its light, sponge-like structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the beaten eggs hold their foam while baking.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the egg foam and supporting a tender crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
The step that matters
Roll the cake up immediately. Rolling while the cake is still hot and pliable keeps it from cracking. As it cools, the set crumb loses flexibility and tears easily.
“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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