What does melted butter do in a swiss roll recipe?
I'm planning on making a Swiss roll. This is a sponge cake, baked in your baking sheet (so it's thin) and you roll it up, mostly with a filling.
While looking for a recipe, some recipes say to use the same recipe as for a regular sponge cake, but add some melted butter. Other recipes don't mention melted butter and stick to eggs, sugar and flour. I'm wondering what the function of the butter is in a Swiss roll. Does it help with rolling? Or is it just taste? Can I omit it?
(I would omit it if it's just the taste. My filling will be butter cream.)
Best Answer
I have never added butter to sponge sheets when making swiss rolls, jelly rolls, or anything similar in the past. It's just straight up bread flour, sugar, and eggs.
I can only think of three possible reasons why butter might be added:
To improve the flavour;
To keep the sheets moist and help prevent overbaking, as any fat would be used in cake batter; however, this is generally not a major concern in cake rolls; or
To help prevent it from sticking to the sheet (don't bother; if you have this problem, use a silicone mat).
Reasons #2 and #3 aren't very convincing to me, so I would only bother adding butter if you prefer the taste of swiss rolls with butter added.
I don't think butter would help with rolling at all, in fact it might make rolling more difficult on account of making the sheets more crumbly and less able to hold together under pressure.
Pictures about "What does melted butter do in a swiss roll recipe?"
Why did my Swiss roll go rubbery?
Why is my swiss roll rubbery? The cake can become rubbery if the batter has been over-mixed. Over-mixing the batter increases the development of gluten which in turn increases the cakes gumminess. Over-mixing can also deflate the air bubbles that were created when whipping the meringue, causing the cake to deflate.Why is my Swiss roll tough?
They have way too much flour. The more flour there is, the firmer the cake. A cake that's 1-2 cm tall should have very little flour because it doesn't need much structural support. If it has as much flour as a cake that's 5-7 cm tall, it'd be dense and hard.Why is my Swiss roll thin?
The Swiss rolls in the picture apparently are too thin as compared to the commercially sold thickness. This is definitely not a failed recipe, it is the result of using the incorrect baking tray size.What makes a Swiss roll Swiss?
A Swiss roll is a type of cake that typically consists of a thin layer of vanilla sponge cake rolled around strawberry or raspberry jam. Newer interpretations\u2014like the chocolate Swiss roll\u2014incorporate flavored cakes and fillings made of buttercream, whipped cream, chocolate ganache, fudge, or marshmallow.Swiss Roll Recipe (3 Ingredient Sponge) || Dessert for Beginners
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Images: Ryutaro Tsukata, Katerina Holmes, Wendy Wei, Mi Butter SA