Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Jelly 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.
Make the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar for five minutes.
Add the beaten eggs and water, and mix well.
Sift the flour with the cream of tartar and baking soda, then add to the mixture and beat for another five minutes.
Pour the batter into a greased dripping pan, spreading it to about ½ inch thick.
Bake and roll
Bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden.
Remove the cake from the oven and turn it onto a clean, damp cloth.
Spread jelly over the cake and roll it up tightly.
Finish and serve
Optionally, roll the cake in powdered sugar before serving.
For best results, let it sit overnight before serving.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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, setting the sponge as they cook.
- Butter
- Adds fat and tenderness to the crumb and a rich flavour.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its body for rolling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown lightly while keeping it tender.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter, stabilising it and helping the cake stay tender.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
The step that matters
Rolling the cake while warm. Rolling the cake onto a damp cloth while it is still warm keeps it flexible, so it bends without cracking. Once cooled, the sponge loses flexibility and tends to split.
“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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