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Dessert

Swiss Roll

A sponge cake rolled with jam, baked and rolled after being cooled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Swiss Roll

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the eggs.

  3. Measure the weight of the eggs and use that amount of flour and sugar.

Make and bake the sponge

  1. Mix the flour, sugar, and baking powder together.

  2. Cream the butter and add it to the mixture.

  3. Bake for 8 minutes until firm on top.

  4. While baking, warm the jam.

Roll and serve

  1. Prepare a pastry board with a sheet of paper and sprinkle it with caster sugar.

  2. Once baked, turn the cake upside down onto the prepared paper.

  3. Remove the lining paper and trim a thin strip from each side.

  4. Spread the warm jam quickly over the cake and roll it up.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Whisked into the batter to trap air, giving the sponge its light structure.
Flour
Forms the set structure of the sponge as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the sponge and helps it stay tender and browned.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the sponge rises.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, softer crumb.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity moisture inside the rolled sponge.

The step that matters

Turn the cake out and roll it while warm. Rolling a warm sponge keeps it flexible so it bends without cracking; once it cools it loses elasticity and splits. Spreading the jam quickly also keeps it from soaking unevenly into the crumb.

“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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