3 eggs
2 drops of vanilla essence
110g/3½oz of caster sugar
75g/2½oz of plain flour
2 to 3 tablespoons of raspberry jam
Icing sugar or caster sugar to dust
- Preheat the oven to 410°F/210°C/gas mark 6½.
- Line a swiss roll tin like this one:Tu Oven Tray
- Whisk the eggs, vanilla and sugar with an electric mixer or beater on high until the mixture becomes a thick, stable foam which holds a shape - the soft peak stage.
- Gradually fold the sifted flour in.
- Gently pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth out to the corners with a pallet knife.
- Bake about 8 minutes, avoid opening the door during cooking.
- Once the cake is cooked turn out immediately onto a cake rack covered with a clean slightly damp tea towel (wring the towel out as hard as you can).
- Peel the lining off the back of the cake then spread it with your filling of choice (if filling is heat sensitive you'll have to let it cool off a little - cover the cake with another slightly damp teatowel if you do this to keep it moist.
- Using the bottom teatowel to help you, gently but firmly roll the cake into a tight spiral.
- If it cracks then the cake has dried out too much or was over-cooked.
- If it's dried, you can try to revive it by placing it on a hot slightly damp tea towel so the steam can moisten it again.
Most likely your first attempts will go wrong. They'll crack, all the filling will squidge out and generally it'll be bad.
Many instructions have you turn the cake out onto sugared greaseproof rather than a damp towel, I don't do that for a few reasons. Firstly I think that coating the cake with sugar makes it too sweet. Secondly by turning out onto a dry surface the cake cools and dries too quickly and makes it more likely to crack. Thirdly, I just find it much easier to roll the cake up using a teatowel rather than paper. The paper tears, it's crinkly and hard to get a good grip on. Warm, damp teatowels are your friend when you're doing swiss rolls.
Some people swear by pre-rolling the cake and letting it cool down for a bit (roll it up with the tea towel inside it, then tie the ends to keep it tight and leave to cool. If you're putting cream in the cake, and so have to wait for it to be cool before you can add the filling this is probably a good idea. Roll the cake without the filling, then after it's cooled enough that it won't melt the cream you can gently unroll it, add the cream (or Icecream!) and roll it back up.
Swiss roll sponge is fatless, so it doesn't have the same texture as a normal cake - it's flexible when warm and moist, but goes brittle and sets in shape when it cools down.
If the cake is too thick that can also make it difficult to get a good number of curls in. You don't need to go shop-bought thin, but if you can keep it at no more than 1.5cm (3/4 inch) deep then you'll have the best luck.