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 ↓
Jelly Roll
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).
Beat the eggs until light, then add the sugar and salt, stirring until dissolved.
Sift the flour and cream of tartar together twice, then add to the egg mixture and beat until light.
Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add it to the mixture.
Bake and roll
Pour the batter into a flat pan and bake for 10 to 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and place on a clean napkin.
Spread jelly on the underside and roll it up.
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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Sugar + eggtop 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 into foam that traps air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the cake's set structure once heated, holding the rolled sponge together.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the beaten egg foam.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the egg foam, helping it stay stable and light during mixing and baking.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, adding lift to the sponge.
The step that matters
Beat the eggs until light before adding the sugar. Beaten eggs hold the air that makes a sponge rise and stay light. If the foam collapses during mixing, the baked cake will be dense and may crack when rolled.
“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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