Meet Noreen!

Hi!  I'm Noreen, wife, mother of two amazing, almost grown, daughters, content creator, cook, baker and sister in Christ. Welcome to my Kitchen!   I hope you stick around, enjoy the recipes and share them with those you love!

Life is a lot like a jelly roll.  It has cracks.  Sometimes you can hide them with jelly and sometimes you can't.  You can choose to either moan about the cracks or you can simply embrace them!  Life is too short to worry about such things.  Embrace the cracks!

I hope this inspires you to brush off the retro recipes of your youth and make them for your family.  Some of these things are fun touch stones to our past.  They may have died out of popularity, but they are still worthy of our time and effort and definitely our enjoyment.  Give this jelly roll a try and I hope you love it!

Happy Eating!

4 eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup cake flour

The classics are the best, in my opinion and when my memory was jogged, I got busy making one.  I seriously did!  After dinner one Sunday evening a few weeks back, I whipped up this delicious dessert for the family to enjoy.  This is the perfect sponge that bakes up fast and cools in no time, making way for the filling, the rolling and the slicing.  It's so simple, yet so delicious, if you have never had the pleasure of enjoying a jelly roll, I hope you will do so soon.

This all starts with a classic sponge cake.  Lots of eggs, a bit of sugar and flour and just a scosh of levening and flavoring.  Easy to throw together on the fly.  This cake bakes in just 7 minutes!  Don't bake it one minute more because the cake will dry out and it will be difficult to roll and you will risk cracking.  ​​​​

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Noreen's Kitchen

1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar for dusting

1 cup of raspberry jam

Sadly cracking is a hazard of jelly roll making.  If your cake cracks, fear not,  simply fill it and roll with it.  Cake and jelly are a magical thing.  No one will even remember the crack after it has been enjoyed.  I made my sponge and baked it and then as I was removing it from the pan it cracked.  UGH!  I was not happy!  So off camera I went to make another sponge cake.  I set them both to cool with the full intention of spreading Nutella on the cracked one and in my haste and excitement to get the video done, I unintentionally spread the "good" sponge cake with the camouflage Nutella.  It was not until I had begun filming that I realized my boneheaded move.  Alas, not everything is perfect in Noreen's Kitchen, as I am sure it is not in yours.  So we spread jelly and rolled with it. Moved on and as it turned out the crack was encapsulated within the roll and nobody will ever know!

Today let's go old school with this classic retro recipe for jelly roll!  I have very fond memories of jelly roll from my youth.  A favorite that my mom and grandmother made and filled with classic raspberry jam.   You can fill this simple sponge cake with anything you like.  I love it with strawberry mousse, lemon filling or even with Nutella!  No matter what direction you choose, this classic dessert is perfect for the warmer months of summer.  It is light and delicious and requires little more than a dusting of powdered sugar and a dollop of freshly whipped cream.

I was recently roaming the internet for some inspiration with summer in mind and the jelly roll crossed my path.  This invoked memories of my child hood when jelly rolls were as pervasive as Hostess cakes are today.  I remember being able to purchase whole rolls of raspberry filled goodness in little  cellophane packages in which the roll was protected by a pristine white corrugated board on three sides.  Making it easy for you to see both ends and the tender sponge of the cake.  I also remember being able to purchase individual slices that were wrapped in a similar fashion.  Jelly roll was a ubiquitous dessert that just fizzled into the background, so much culinary ephemera of a bygone time.  ​​

Raspberry Jelly Roll Retro REcipe

Step by Step Instructions

Note:  Very important to have both room temperature eggs as well as cake flour for this recipe.  If you do not have cake flour you can make your own by measuring one cup of all purpose flour and removing two tablespoons.  Replace them with 2 tablespoons of corn starch.  Mix well and you have homemade cake flour.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Prepare a jelly roll pan (10 x 15) with cooking oil spray and parchment to fit and spray the parchment as well.

Beat eggs, salt and baking powder together in a large bowl using a hand mixer.  Beat until light yellow and frothy.

Continue beating on high speed and gradually add in the sugar until the mixture is very pale yellow and doubled in volume.

Add vanilla extract and stir gently.

Add flour and fold in gently using a spatula.  Being sure to incorporate well without deflating the mixture.

Pour batter into the prepared baking sheet.

Using an offset spatula spread batter evenly to all four corners of the pan.

Bake for 7 minutes.

While cake is baking lay a lint free towel, pillowcase or parchment paper on the counter and dust liberally with powdered sugar.

Remove from oven and immediately run a knife around the edge of the cake and the pan to loosen.

Immediately turn the cake out onto the prepared towel.  Remove the bottom parchment and gently roll up from the short side into a spiral.  Allow the cake roll to cool like this before filling.  This should take about 30 minutes. 

Once cake has cooled completely, you can gently unroll and remove the towel. 

Spread the jam evenly across the cake and then roll back up as tightly as you can without breaking. 

Place seam side down onto a pan or serving tray. 

This sponge cake can be filled with whatever you like.  Nutella, mousse, jam, jelly of any type or pie filling as well.

This cake is best eaten fresh and does not freeze well.  You can keep the cake for up to four or five days in a tightly covered container.  
                                             Enjoy!

Noreen's Kitchen
Raspberry Jelly Roll; Retro Retro Recipe