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Dessert

Chocolate Roll

A rolled cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, boiling water, melted chocolate, and a chocolate filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Roll

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cake

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 1 cup of sugar.

  3. Add the yolks of 3 eggs, well beaten, along with 6 tablespoons of boiling water, 1 cup of flour, and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

  4. Mix carefully and pour into a well buttered and floured jelly roll pan.

  5. Roll out on sugared paper.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, stir melted chocolate, ½ cup sugar, and ½ cup water until well blended.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of butter and the cornstarch mixed with ½ cup milk.

  3. Stir until boiling, then remove from heat and add 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 whites trap air and give the sponge its light, airy structure.
Flour
Sets the structure of the sponge as its proteins and starch bake firm.
Sugar
Sweetens the sponge and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the sponge rise.
Baker's chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and dark color of the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it heats and comes to a boil.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten to firm peaks before sugar is gradually added. Underbeaten whites give a dense roll, and overbeaten whites turn grainy and collapse, so the air that makes the sponge rise is lost.

“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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