Contents
A thin sponge baked on a sheet, spread with jam or cream, and rolled. Not Swiss — the name appears in nineteenth-century English and American cookbooks with no Swiss connection anyone has traced — and it is the standard technique behind everything from a jam roly-poly to a bûche de Noël to a Japanese roll cake.
The only difficulty is cracking, and cracking has one cause.
What makes it work
- Roll it while hot, before filling. Turn the baked sponge onto a sugared cloth or parchment, peel the lining, and roll it up with the cloth inside. Leave it rolled until cold. The crumb sets in the curve, and when you unroll, fill and re-roll, it goes back without breaking. This is the entire technique.
- A moist, flexible sponge. Whipped whole egg with a little oil or hot milk; a lean genoise cracks more readily.
- Do not overbake. Eight to ten minutes. Two minutes too long and it is a cracker.
- Trim the far edge on a diagonal so the seam lies flat, and roll from the short side for a fat roll or the long side for a thin one.
- Cream fillings need the sponge fully cold, and a chilled roll cuts cleanly.
Ingredients
One 30 × 40 cm sheet. Serves 10.
- 4 eggs, room temperature
- 120 g caster sugar
- 120 g all-purpose flour
- 5 g baking powder
- 3 g fine salt
- 3 tbsp warm milk
- 2 tbsp neutral oil
- 1 tsp vanilla — see Pure vanilla extract
- caster sugar, for the cloth
Filling — one of:
- 250 g raspberry or strawberry jam, warmed and stirred loose
- 300 ml double cream whipped with 30 g powdered sugar, plus 200 g berries
- 250 g chocolate ganache, cooled to spreadable
Method
Heat the oven to 200 °C / 400 °F. Line a 30 × 40 cm tray with parchment.
Whip the eggs and sugar for six to eight minutes, until tripled and at the ribbon stage. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and fold in three additions. Mix the warm milk, oil and vanilla and fold in last.
Spread evenly to the corners and bake 8–10 minutes, until golden and springy.
Lay a clean tea towel on the bench and dust it heavily with caster sugar. Turn the sponge onto it, peel off the parchment, trim the crisp edges, and roll it up with the towel inside, from the short or long edge.
Leave rolled until completely cold, about an hour.
Unroll gently, spread the filling to within 2 cm of the far edge, and re-roll. Chill 30 minutes before slicing.
Notes
- The sugar on the cloth stops it sticking and gives the outside a light crust; a chocolate roll can be turned out onto cocoa instead.
- Japanese roll cakes use a chiffon-style batter, bake at 170 °C for 13 minutes, and are rolled with the browned side inward for a pale outside.
- Keeps two days refrigerated with a cream filling, three at room temperature with jam.
Elsewhere on the site
Method and theory: Cake recipes · cakes · genoise
Nearby: yule log · genoise · lamingtons