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Dessert

Swiss Roll

A rolled sponge cake with raspberry jam, dusted with castor sugar.

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 quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. Gently stir in the flour until just combined.

Bake and roll

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-greased 14x11 inch baking tin.

  2. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

  3. Turn the cake out onto sugared paper and sprinkle with castor sugar.

  4. Remove the paper from the bottom, warm the jam slightly, and spread it over the cake.

  5. Roll the cake 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 + 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. Butter + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Trap air and set into the sponge's light, flexible structure.
Flour
Provides the protein and starch that form the cake's structure as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a lighter crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the batter.
Raspberry jam
Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Roll the cake up quickly. The sponge is flexible only while warm; as it cools the starch and protein set, so it cracks if rolled late.

Swap the raspberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, sugar, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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