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Sponge Cake Roll
Take four eggs, beaten separately, one teacup sugar, one teacup flour, one teaspoonful cream tartar, sifted with the flour, and half a small teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of hot water; bake in a biscuit pan, turn out when done on a damp cloth; spread while warm with jelly or lemon butter, then roll the cake in granulated sugar.
A thin whipped-egg sponge baked flat and rolled while hot — the ancestor of the jelly roll. The original assumes you know your own stove, so temperature, time and pan size all have to be supplied.
- Roll it warm, or not at allThe hinge of the whole recipe. A thin sponge stays pliable only while hot; once cool it cracks along the outer curve. Turn it out, spread and roll within a couple of minutes of leaving the oven.
- The teacupA nineteenth-century teacup is usually reckoned at about 6 fl oz, three-quarters of a modern cup, though the term was never standardised. Since sugar and flour are here in equal measure, use the same vessel for both and the ratio holds whichever reading you take.
- "A biscuit pan"A shallow rectangular baking sheet with a low rim — close to what is now sold as a jelly-roll pan, roughly 10 by 15 inches. The recipe says nothing about preparing it; line it with parchment, or grease and flour it.
- Oven and timeNo temperature is given. A thin sponge of this kind wants a fairly quick oven, 375–400F, for 8 to 12 minutes: baked just until the surface springs back. Overbaking is a common cause of cracking.
- Cream of tartar and sodaTogether these are simply chemical leavening assembled from parts, as was normal before packaged baking powder was general. The soda is dissolved in hot water so it disperses instantly; add it last and get the pan into the oven promptly.
- Eggs beaten separatelyYolks beaten with the sugar until pale, whites whipped to soft peaks and folded in at the end. The aeration does most of the lifting here, with the soda and cream of tartar assisting.
- Lemon butterPeriod name for lemon curd — eggs, sugar, lemon and butter cooked to a thick cream. Any thick, spreadable filling works; a loose jam will soak the crumb and slump out of the spiral.
- The damp clothA clean towel wrung out in hot water keeps the sponge from drying and sticking as it is turned out. Sugar the cloth first if you want a less tacky surface to work on.
- YieldOne roll, cutting into eight to ten slices. Best the day it is made.
Rolled sponges appear in American and British cookbooks through the second half of the nineteenth century, and in Britain under the name Swiss roll. The lack of butter is the point: a fatless sponge stays flexible enough to bend, which a richer batter will not do. In such books supper was the light evening meal, not dinner, and leaned on cakes, preserves and cold things that could be set out without much cooking. The pairing of cream of tartar with soda, rather than a tin of baking powder, suggests a period when commercial powders were available but not yet universal in home kitchens.