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Dessert

Swiss Roll

A rolled sponge cake filled with jam and dusted with icing sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Swiss Roll

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Grease a square baking tin.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Sift in the flour and baking powder, and mix until combined.

  3. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and spread evenly.

Bake and roll

  1. Bake for about 10‑12 minutes until lightly golden.

  2. While warm, spread jam over the cake and roll it up tightly.

  3. Dust with icing sugar when cooled.

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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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, they trap air that gives the sponge its light structure.
Sugar
Beaten with the eggs to build volume and add sweetness to the sponge.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking to give the sponge its body.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the sponge rise.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour inside the rolled cake.

The step that matters

Roll the cake while it is warm. A freshly baked sponge is soft and flexible when warm. As it cools, it stiffens and tends to crack when rolled, so the jam is spread and the roll is made before it cools.

“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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