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Roll Jelly Cake
Three eggs, one cup sugar, one cup flour, three tablespoons sweet milk, one tablespoon baking powder.
This is an ingredient list rather than a method, which was normal in community cookbooks where every cook already knew how a sponge sheet was handled. The hinge is the rolling: the cake must be turned out and rolled while still hot, or it cracks.
- The missing methodBeat the eggs with the sugar until pale and thick enough to fall in a ribbon, fold in the flour sifted with the baking powder, then loosen with the milk. Spread thin and even on a lined shallow pan; a modern 10x15 inch jelly roll pan suits this quantity.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction. A thin sponge sheet is generally baked hot, around 375-400F, for 8 to 12 minutes. It is done when the top springs back; overbaking dries the sheet and is one of the common causes of splitting.
- RollingTurn the hot cake onto a towel dusted with powdered sugar, peel off the paper, and roll it up in the towel. Let it cool rolled, then unroll, spread with jelly warmed slightly so it spreads without tearing, and roll again.
- Baking powderOne tablespoon to one cup of flour is heavy by modern standards. Period powders were likely more variable in strength and packing, and modern practice would use one to one and a half teaspoons; the full tablespoon can leave a metallic aftertaste.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh unsoured milk. Nineteenth-century recipes specified it because sour milk was the other thing in the house, and it called for soda rather than baking powder.
- No fatThere is no butter or oil here, which is why the sheet stays flexible enough to roll. It also means the cake stales within a day; make it the morning it is eaten.
- JellyA firm, tart jelly such as currant or crabapple suits this well. Loose jam soaks into the crumb and makes the spiral soggy.
- YieldOne roll, about ten slices.
Rolled sponge cakes spread through American home cooking in the second half of the nineteenth century, appearing under the names jelly cake, jelly roll and, in Britain, Swiss roll, though the connection to Switzerland is traditional rather than documented. This was the sort of thing set out with tea and cold meat in the evening, cheap in ingredients, quick in the oven, and impressive out of proportion to the handful of things that go into it.