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Dessert

Swiss Roll

A rolled sponge cake filled with jam, baked and rolled while still warm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Swiss Roll

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a baking sheet with greased parchment paper.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add one egg and half the flour.

  3. Mix in the second egg and the remaining flour.

  4. Stir in the milk and baking powder.

  5. Pour the batter onto the prepared sheet.

Bake and roll

  1. Bake until pale brown and set.

  2. While the cake is baking, warm the jam.

  3. Once baked, turn the roll onto a sugar‑sprinkled paper.

  4. Spread the jam over the warm roll.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provide structure and richness as they set the sponge batter.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness to the sponge crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter become creamy and lighter.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the sponge together.
Baking powder
Releases gas to help the sponge rise and stay light.
Jam
Adds sweetness, moisture and flavour inside the rolled sponge.

The step that matters

Roll it up quickly. The sponge must be rolled while still warm and pliable. As it cools, it stiffens and loses flexibility, so it can crack when rolled.

“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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