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Jelly Roll
3 eggs 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 tablespoon milk 1 cup flour 1 tablespoon melted butter Beat egg until light, add sugar gradually, milk, flour mixed and sifted with baking powder and salt, then butter. Line the bottom of a dripping-pan with paper; butter paper and sides of pan. Cover bottom of pan with mixture, and spread evenly. Bake twelve minutes in a moderate oven. Take from oven and turn on a paper sprinkled with powdered sugar. Quickly remove paper, and cut off a thin strip from sides and ends of cake. Spread with jelly or jam which has been beaten to consistency to spread easily, and roll. After cake has been rolled, roll paper around cake that it may better keep in shape. The work must be done quickly, or cake will crack in rolling.
A classic whole-egg sponge sheet, rolled while still hot. Everything depends on speed once the cake leaves the oven.
- The hinge: roll it hotThe cake must be turned out, trimmed, filled and rolled within a minute or two of leaving the oven. Once the crumb cools it sets and cracks along the outside of the curve, exactly as the last line warns.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven in period usage is usually taken as roughly 350-375F. Twelve minutes suits a thin sheet; the cake is done when the surface springs back and the edges just begin to pull from the pan.
- Dripping-panUse a rimmed sheet or jelly-roll pan about 10 by 15 inches. The batter should go on no thicker than a quarter inch, or it will not bend without splitting.
- PaperThe original most likely means plain unwaxed kitchen paper, buttered. Parchment does the same job and releases more reliably; butter it anyway so the hot cake lifts cleanly.
- Beating the eggsWhole eggs, beaten until light and thick, do much of the lifting here, though the teaspoon of baking powder to a cup of flour is a full working dose rather than mere insurance. Fold in the flour rather than stirring, and add the melted butter last, off to one side, so it does not deflate the foam.
- The milkHalf a tablespoon is a very small quantity even for this batter, and some period sponge sheets call for a full tablespoon. Either amount works; the batter should ribbon thickly off the spoon.
- The fillingWarm the jelly or jam slightly and beat it smooth so it spreads without tearing the crumb. Leave a half inch bare at the far edge or it will squeeze out as you roll.
- Trimming and shapingCutting the crisp edges off is not cosmetic; those dried strips are where cracks start. Rolling the paper around the finished cake and leaving it a few minutes sets the spiral.
- YieldOne roll, about ten slices. Best the day it is made; the sponge stales quickly.