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 ↓
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).
Beat together the sugar and eggs in a bowl.
Sift the baking powder into the flour and mix it into the egg mixture.
Add the cold water and mix until combined.
Pour the batter into long, shallow baking tins.
Bake and roll
Bake until golden brown.
Once baked, remove from the tins, spread jelly on the bottom, roll the cake, and wrap it in a napkin until cool.
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 + 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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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
- Provide structure and lift when beaten into the batter.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and stay light.
The step that matters
Baking the thin sponge. Baking only until golden brown matters because an overbaked sponge dries out and cracks when rolled. Removing it from the tins promptly while still warm helps keep it flexible enough to roll without breaking.
“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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