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Dessert

Swiss Roll

A rolled sponge cake with jam filling, baked briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, caster sugar, salt, and baking powder, then add the beaten eggs and mix until smooth.

  3. Butter a shallow baking tin and pour in the mixture.

Bake

  1. Bake for 5 minutes.

Roll and fill

  1. Sprinkle caster sugar on a sheet of paper.

  2. Turn the cake out onto the sugared paper, top side down.

  3. Spread jam over the cake and roll it up quickly.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 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).

Flour and egg 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the light sponge together as it bakes.
Eggs
Trap air when beaten, giving the sponge its light, airy texture.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the sponge and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the sponge rise.
Jam
Adds sweetness and moisture to the filling inside the rolled sponge.

The step that matters

Roll the cake quickly after baking. A freshly baked sponge is warm and pliable. As it cools, the starch and protein set and it becomes brittle, so it cracks if rolled late.

“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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