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Glite Dictionary
Swiss roll

Swiss roll

2.6
A thin sponge cake spread with jam or cream and shaped into a tube
  • noun
  • /swɪs roʊl/
translation icon : brazo gitano
  • At the bakery, I bought a Swiss roll topped with whipped cream.

Examples

  • The birthday party featured a beautiful Swiss roll decorated with chocolate sprinkles.

  • Chop a slice off the end of each Swiss roll.

    Blog text (16)

  • The issue is, is that I don't see any tiny Swiss rolls anywhere.

  • Esther produced a Swiss roll and several bags of crisps.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Any Swiss rolls?

    A Kind of Loving (1962)

  • For dessert, she served a delicious Swiss roll filled with strawberry jam.

Synonyms

jellyroll
vsSwiss roll
  • US
1 2.7

A thin sponge cake spread with jam and rolled into a cylinder

usually uses jam or cream instead of jelly
jelly roll
vsSwiss roll
  • US
1 3.5

A thin sponge cake spread with jam and rolled into a spiral

also commonly uses cream in addition to jam

How Rich

Yule log
  • Archaic
1 8.2
Swiss roll
2.6
jelly roll
  • US
1 3.5

Surface Forms

Swiss roll singular
Swiss rolls plural

Morphology

Swiss + roll

A B1 learner who knows 'Swiss' (from Switzerland) and 'roll' (something formed into a roll / a rolled item) can reasonably infer this refers to a rolled pastry or cake of Swiss style; the meaning is compositionally predictable from the constituents. The construction parallels names for similar pastries in many languages (e.g. 'jelly roll', 'roulé'), so the concept is cross-linguistically transparent.

Etymology

The dessert Swiss roll may come from 19th-century bakery names, but the easy image is a thin sponge cake spread with jam or cream and then rolled up into a little roll, like a sweet 'log'. That's why Swiss roll means a thin sheet of cake rolled into a 'tube'.