This super Easy 3-Ingredient Cake Roll with Strawberry Jam is perfect to celebrate the summer! It takes only a few minutes to prepare and can be done and ready to serve in under an hour. It uses only simple ingredients and has no oil or butter and it’s dairy-free. Perfect Red and White Cake Roll!

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It’s quite difficult to summarize Russian cuisine. Crepes are quite traditionally Russian but they are not an everyday or even every week affair. Pelmeni, Russian dumplings, are common but many cultures have their own versions of dumplings also.

Could it be mayo-laden salads that are the focal point of Russian kitchens? Perhaps, but then we get into a discussion of Russian versus Soviet cuisine and that’s a complicated topic.

Russian desserts, however, are a lot easier to describe! Yeasty dough is very common for different kinds of sweet hand pies and big fruit slab pies. Many kinds of cookies and simple cakes and bundt cakes are made with Farmers Cheese.

Cakes are often a multi-layer affair with thin cookie-like sheets of pastry and sour cream frosting. There’s actually a different word for layered cakes with various icings and frostings (торт) and a simple one-layer cake that only has a glaze (кекс).

There’s even a separate word for small individual cake-like pastries (пирожное) and a different word for pastries that include danishes or buns (булка).

And then there are rolls (рулет) which could be made out of traditional cake batter, cake rolls, or puff/pie pastry, strudels. There are even cookie rolls and savoury rolls.

We, Russians, obviously take our sweets very seriously.

This 3-ingredient Cake Roll is a variation of the most traditional Russian cake. It’s one of the easiest cakes to make and I’ve been thinking of making it into a Cake Roll for a very long time. Finally, I gave it a try.

If you’d like to see more variations of this traditional Russian Cake, then you must purchase my cookbook, The Ultimate One-Pan Oven Cookbook. It has a recipe for Cake-Stuffed Peaches and they are delicious!!

Whenever I make my Quick and Easy Cake, I usually mix the batter really quickly, in less than a minute or so. My grandma, on the other hand, used a mixer to whip the eggs and her cake was very different. I used her technique to make this Easy 3-ingredient Cake Roll with Strawberry Jam.

What are the 3 ingredients in this Cake Roll

Eggs
Sugar
Flour

That’s it. Just eggs, sugar, and flour. Did you notice that there’s no baking powder listed? That is not a mistake! On occasion I add 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of baking powder but most of the time not. Whipped eggs provide enough air for the cake to rise.

Also, no butter and no oil in this cake. It is also dairy-free! It is still a cake and I won’t go as far as claiming it to be healthy but it is definitely not as bad as the other more traditional cakes.

How much sugar to use to make this Easy 3-ingredient Cake Roll?

Option 1: Traditional Russian recipe usually calls for 1 cup of sugar. This will result in a very sweet cake.

Option 2: Use 3/4 cup sugar for a slightly less sweet cake.

Option 3: Use 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of sugar as listed in this recipe if your filling isn’t too sweet, like the filling that I use.

Option 4: Use 1/2 cup sugar only if your filling is quite sweet and if you prefer less sweet desserts like I do.

What fillings can I use for this really Easy 3-ingredient Cake Roll?

I use my delicious Instant Pot Strawberry Chia Jam. It has no refined sugar and just a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup for 3 cups of jam. Using just Strawberry Jam and a sprinkling of Icing Sugar on top, makes this Red and White Cake Roll a perfect dessert to celebrate Canada Day!

You can use your favourite Strawberry Jam. If it’s really sweet then you might need to reduce the sugar in the cake roll to 1/2 a cup.

Use Strawberry Jam but add some blueberries also. Sprinkle with Icing Sugar on top. The Cake Roll will look beautiful Red, Blue, and White and it will be perfect to celebrate 4th of July!

Use whipped cream and berries. Like Ashley does in her beautiful Berry Angel Food Cake Roll.

Nutella! Do I need to say anything else?

How to make 3-ingredient Cake Roll

Easy! There’s no egg separation. No need to use multiple bowls. It’s a one-bowl recipe! Add the eggs and the sugar to a bowl and then whip using a hand-held or stand mixer until the eggs triple in volume and become very pale. Watch the video to see the magic!

Add the flour, mix it just until it disappears. Spread the batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan and bake for 20-22 minutes. Once baked, cover the cake with a clean kitchen towel and roll the warm cake.

Cool slightly, unroll, spread the filling, roll back and enjoy!

Why do you need to use a towel to make the Cake Roll

It is very important to roll the warm cake with a towel! If you don’t roll the cake while it is still warm, it will break into pieces and won’t roll once cooled.

Using a towel means that the cake will stick to the towel and then you’ll be able to easily peel the towel away. If you don’t use the towel, then the cake will stick together and you will not be able to unroll it without breaking it!!

Watch the VIDEO to see how easy it is to make this 3-ingredient Cake Roll

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