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Dessert

Jelly Roll

A rolled cake made from a batter of eggs, powdered sugar, flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and water, topped with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Jelly 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 batter

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs until well combined.

  3. Add the powdered sugar and flour, stirring until smooth.

  4. Mix in the cream of tartar and baking soda dissolved in water.

  5. Pour the batter into two pie pans, spreading it evenly.

Bake and roll

  1. Bake until golden brown.

  2. Once done, turn the cake onto a towel, bottom side up.

  3. Spread jelly evenly over the cake.

  4. Roll the cake up quickly and wrap it tightly in the towel.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 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. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 and beaten, they trap air that gives the sponge its light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins and starch set during baking, giving the cake enough structure to roll without cracking.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps give the cake a fine, tender crumb.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the egg foam and keeping the cake tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Roll the cake up quickly. Rolling while the cake is still warm and flexible prevents cracking. Once it cools, the sponge loses moisture and stiffens, and it will split 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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