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Dessert

Swiss Roll

A rolled sponge cake with preserve filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Swiss Roll

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good 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. Butter a Yorkshire pudding tin and dust it with very fine castor sugar.

Make the sponge

  1. Whisk the eggs with boiling water and lemon juice for 20 minutes.

  2. Pour the cake mixture into the tin, filling it less than half full.

Bake and roll

  1. Bake for 10 minutes.

  2. Sprinkle very fine sugar on top.

  3. Bake for an additional 5 minutes or until done.

  4. Turn the cake out onto a clean sheet of paper, sugared side down.

  5. Spread a thin layer of preserve on the upper side and roll the cake 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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 a foam that traps air, giving the sponge its light structure as it sets in the oven.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the sponge a tender, fine crumb.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps stabilise the whisked egg foam.
Preserve
Adds sweetness, fruity flavour and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs. The sponge's rise and lightness depend on the air whisked into the eggs. Under-whisking gives a dense cake that is hard to roll, so the eggs need the full 20 minutes.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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