You may have seen these light-as-air Chinese swiss rolls in a Chinese bakery near you. Not to be mistaken with traditional Swiss rolls, we wanted to make the lighter, Asian-style Chinese Swiss roll recipe. It’s composed of a very light and fluffy sponge cake that’s only slightly sweet, and a thin layer of sweetened whipped cream. Bakeries in Chinatown charge almost $2.00 for a slice of this cake, and I figured it was about time we made our own.
I’m not big on sweets (I always go for the salty, savory side of things), but I love this Chinese swiss roll. As I developed the recipe for this post, I made it several times, and I’m ashamed to admit that I must have consumed at least half of each one. A middle-aged woman stuffing her face with cake in an empty kitchen? Not a pretty sight. Let us dim that image for my sake and focus on the recipe at hand.
We decided to make the very basic version for this post: plain sponge cake with cream. However, you can make whatever variations you like. You can make a chocolate whipped cream, add fresh fruit, or just use jam for the filling. On another note, I used a 10×10-inch square pan, which is what’s photographed. The cake came out a little too thick to roll easily, however, so we recommend using a 9×13 inch pan.
Chinese Swiss Roll: Recipe Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the cake flour, cornstarch, and baking powder. Sift them twice. Sounds kind of fussy, but it’s a necessary step to making this cake light and airy.
In a large bowl, whisk together the 3 egg yolks and 2 ½ tablespoons sugar. Whisk in the oil and the milk until it’s light yellow and fully emulsified.
Thoroughly fold in the sifted dry ingredients until there are no lumps. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites until you get soft peaks. Add another 2 ½ tablespoons of sugar to the egg whites and whip until you get stiff peaks.
Taking 1/3 of the egg white mixture at a time, fold it into the egg yolk mixture create a light and airy batter.
Make sure everything is thoroughly combined.
Line your baking pan with parchment paper. You can cut the four corners of the paper and overlap it to create smooth corners. Pour the mixture in the pan and smooth it out so it’s completely even. It’s crucial that the batter be evenly distributed in the pan. Knock the bottom of the pan on a tabletop a few times (you can cover the table’s surface with a kitchen towel to make sure you don’t break anything) to get rid of any large air bubbles.
Place the pan onto a rimmed baking sheet and pour a cup of water into the baking sheet, so your pan is sitting in a shallow water bath. Place your whole apparatus on the middle rack of your oven and bake for 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let it just cool enough to handle . Flip the pan out onto another piece of parchment paper. Carefully peel off the parchment paper that the cake baked with.
In a mixer, whip the cream along with a teaspoon of sugar until you get stiff peaks. When the cake is still warm enough to be pliable but not warm enough to melt your cream, spread the whipped cream evenly onto the cake. Grab a rolling pin, preferably one that doesn’t have handles.
To roll the cake up, taking out a rolling pin and place it underneath the parchment paper your cake is sitting on.
Slowly roll the parchment paper onto the rolling pin one side as you roll up the cake on the other. Essentially, you’re using the rolling pin to push the cake forward as you roll. At the same time, you’re using the pin to roll up the loose parchment paper.
Once rolled, dust with powdered sugar if you like, slice, and serve. It goes great with fruit!
Chinese Swiss Roll
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup cake flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 3 eggs (separated)
- 5 tablespoons sugar (divided, plus 1 teaspoon)
- 2 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil (or canola oil)
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1/3 cup cold heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the cake flour, cornstarch, and baking powder. Sift them twice. Sounds kind of fussy, but it’s a necessary step to making this cake light and airy.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the 3 egg yolks and 2 ½ tablespoons sugar. Whisk in the oil and the milk until it’s light yellow and fully emulsified. Thoroughly fold in the sifted dry ingredients until there are no lumps. Set aside.
- Using an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites until you get soft peaks. Add another 2 ½ tablespoons of sugar to the egg whites and whip until you get stiff peaks.
- Taking 1/3 of the egg white mixture at a time, fold it into the egg yolk mixture create a light and airy batter. Make sure everything is thoroughly combined. Line your baking pan with parchment paper. You can cut the four corners of the paper and overlap it to create smooth corners.
- Pour the mixture in the pan and smooth it out so it’s completely even. It’s crucial that the batter be evenly distributed in the pan. Knock the bottom of the pan on a tabletop a few times (you can cover the table’s surface with a kitchen towel to make sure you don’t break anything) to get rid of any large air bubbles.
- Place the pan onto a rimmed baking sheet and pour a cup of water into the baking sheet, so your pan is sitting in a shallow water bath. Place your whole apparatus on the middle rack of your oven and bake for 15 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let it just cool enough to handle . Flip the pan out onto another piece of parchment paper. Carefully peel off the parchment paper that the cake baked with.
- In a mixer, whip the cream along with a teaspoon of sugar until you get stiff peaks. When the cake is still warm enough to be pliable but not warm enough to melt your cream, spread the whipped cream evenly onto the cake.
- To roll the cake up, taking out a rolling pin and place it underneath the parchment paper your cake is sitting on. Slowly roll the parchment paper onto the rolling pin one side as you roll up the cake on the other. Essentially, you’re using the rolling pin to push the cake forward as you roll. At the same time, you’re using the pin to roll up the loose parchment paper. Once rolled, dust with powdered sugar if you like, slice, and serve. It goes great with fruit!
nutrition facts
Delish, just as it is from Chinese bakeries!
Yayyyy!
Can I make a mocha roll by adding instant coffee granules? How much would I add and at which step in the recipe?
are you sure that there are 167kcal per chinese swiss roll? As in 167,000 calories per roll?
just looking for clarity as i am a big fan but don’t want to be a “big” fan.
cheers and thank you for the recipe,
HC
Hi there, “calories” and “kilocalories” are the same unit, actually. So it’s 167 calories/kilocalories per slice, when the roll is divided into 8 slices (indicated by the number of servings in the recipe card.) Thanks for your question!
Made this today and so happy its a success. Its all gone within minutes. Just wondering if you have a recipe for chocolate sponge?
Not yet, Shan, will add it to our to-do-list.
Hey! What kind of pan should I use if I do not have a 10/10 inch pan? I have 9/12 and more, but all rectangular. Also, how deep should the pan be?
Hi Charlotte, I mentioned in the post, a good size pan would be 9 x 13, very shallow like 1/2″ deep is good enough.
I made this twice but both times I was not able to roll the cake. It would break. Does that mean the cake was over cooked? It was still warm to touch when I tried to roll it. The taste is there but maybe the cake is a little dry? I baked it for 15 minutes as said in recipe, but there is very little browning on the top. Any tips or video on how to roll the cake? Thanks!!
Hi Jane, since every oven is different, try baking for less time next time.
One suggestion for rolled cakes is to almost immediately roll it up in a clean dish towel after pulling out of the oven. When cooled, carefully unroll, fill and roll back up. The cracking of the cake should be minimal using this technique. I hope that helps. Love your website, by the way.
Hi Elisa, thank you so much for sharing, Elisa, I will look into it :-)
Hello,
I was wondering how big the pan was that you used and is it a sheet pan? Also, is it regular heavy cream or nondairy whipping cream?
I used a 10″ x 10″ square pan. I used heavy cream for the whipped cream in this recipe.
Can you use all purpose flour? Cake flour is not available in my area.
Hi Ashley, to make a cake flour substitute for this recipe, just take 1/2 cup all purpose flour, remove 1 tablespoon, and sift it together with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch!
I made this Swiss roll today and it was so easy to make. As one reviewer suggested, I doubled the recipe for the whip cream and it was perfect! Thanks for sharing another great recipe! 👍😋
Yayyyy! Awesome!
This was an epic laughable fail for me but it is probably the cook and not the recipe! I think I failed every step and I’m not sure how! The end result went straight in the bin. My first problem was not being able to get the ingredients mixed thoroughly – I think I should have used a hand mixer and not my stand one – then by the time I poured it into a 9 x 13 in pan I had purchased for this purpose, it was extremely obvious there wasn’t enough. So I poured it into a 9x 9 pan. My oven is also notoriously untrustworthy. The recipe says 15 min and the pics looked nice and brown… mine was still mostly yellow with one patch of tan after 15 min. So I left it in there until I got a relatively nice colour, but that was almost 30 min. The cake that came out was only about 1 cm high, kinda “tough” and cracked as soon as I remotely tried to bend it. I left it to cool until it was lukewarm and put some cream on, but the cream still melted. At this point, I did what any reasonable person would do….. bin the cake and eat the cream.
I measured everything out correctly, so not sure where I went wrong. After I recover from the trauma I will give it another shot as it clearly works for others!
Hi Katie, oven temperature can vary a lot from what’s on the dial to the actual temperature. I think it’s worth investing in an oven thermometer to verify your oven temperature. Sounds like it was baked for too long, so it dried up.
Do you have any idea on how bakeries make the swiss roll with lemon filling? Thanks!
I will have to look into it, Sam. I can’t tell you off the top of my head.