Flashback! Jelly Roll! Mom's recipes

My sister, Marilyn, emailed me last night. My brother Jeff, who lives in British Columbia, wanted to know if we had mom's cook books and could find the recipe for jelly roll. I haven't had homemade jelly roll since mom used to make it! I remember she made it fairly often and I can see her now, rolling it up in a damp towel!

I have my mom's cookbooks. When we cleaned out her apartment (she's in a nursing home now), I ended up with them. I've looked through them for fun many times, and now and then for a special recipe. Of course the best one is the smaller size 3 ring binder that she covered in 60's mactac and glued in a zillion recipes that she had clipped from newspapers and the handwritten ones she had gathered over the years.

The ones in the above picture are all handwritten by her, except for the Lemon Butter. Definitely not her handwriting, and looks pretty old. As is the jelly roll recipe! The paper is starting to disintegrate!

Click to enlarge the first picture above and you'll see bits of some of the recipes like "Pate Christmas 1974". We called it "potty", lol, always did! On that page are several "potty" recipes, the basic ingredients but changed up a bit. My mom and dad were trying to duplicate from my dad's memory, the taste of this spicy meat pie that they used to have each year at Christmas, usually after midnight mass, when he was growing up on the farm. You'll also see a recipe for butter tarts which has written below it and crossed out: "I owe Vera 2 bus tickets".....Vera is her sister.

Mom never made anything without a recipe! Unlike me......unless it's baking (which I seldom do!)

I'm going to have to make a jelly roll once fall sets in and there is more time! (How can you tell, I'm not a baker?)Meanwhile I'll give you the recipe here, if you want to try it. It's delicious!

Mom's Jelly Roll

Beat 5 eggs and add 1 cup sugar, 1tsp. vanilla.

Then add: 1 cup flour, 1 tsp. baking powder.

Bake 10 - 12 minutes in 375 degree F oven.

Proceed as for jelly roll. Ha ha ha, only kidding, but there are a few people reading this that will find that line funny....... private joke!

OK.............well, the written recipe becomes vague. It says:

When cooked roll in a damp towel, spread with jelly & roll........which won't make alot of sense to you, so I've googled and found a recipe with decent directions and am just going to paste it here for you.......just the directions. You can use jam or jelly or whatever you like when you make it. Also, I'm sure she was just using a regular cookie sheet that had sides to it, maybe not 1" but close. Also wondering if she just didn't heavily grease the pan with margarine??

Heat oven to 375°. Line jelly roll pan, 15 1/2 × 101/2 × 1 inch, with cooking parchment paper, aluminum foil or waxed paper; generously grease foil or waxed paper. Beat eggs in small bowl with electric mixer on high speed about 5 minutes or until very thick and lemon colored. Pour eggs into medium bowl. Gradually beat in granulated sugar vanilla on low speed. Gradually add flour and baking powder, beating just until batter is smooth. Pour into pan, spreading to corners.
Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Immediately loosen cake from edges of pan and turn upside down onto towel generously sprinkled with powdered sugar. Carefully remove paper. Trim off stiff edges of cake if necessary. While hot, carefully roll cake and towel from narrow end. Cool on wire rack at least 30 minutes.
Unroll cake and remove towel. Beat jelly slightly with fork to soften; spread over cake. Roll up cake. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.