How did I get the wrong size?

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Several years ago I was in the kitchen section of a department store and saw that they had bakeware on sale. I bought a sturdy Swiss-roll tin, as the one I had previously was too flimsy and would warp in the heat, and it was rusty as well. The tins only came in one size so I didn’t think twice about it, I just thought that was the standard size for a Swiss roll. But when I came to use it I made up a Swiss roll recipe from one of my cookbooks and there was nowhere near enough mixture to fill the tin, by the time I had spread it out I ended up with a sort of lace effect! That was not a great success as it came out full of holes and too crispy to roll up; I haven’t used the tin since. But today I thought I would have another try. A few weeks ago in a local grocery store I saw a stack of jars of chestnut puree reduced from £2.30 each to 50p, a great bargain and not the kind of thing you come across every day either, so I bought four – the ‘use by’ date was November 2024. I was looking for interesting ways to use the puree and found a recipe for chestnut and amaretto roulade so thought I would give that a go. Luckily this time I checked before starting, and found that the recipe called for a tin 20 x 30 cm – mine seems to be 26 x 38 cm so about 50% bigger! How come all the recipes use a tin size that doesn’t seem to be available? Anyway I adapted the recipe a bit (it’s hard to get one and a half times three eggs) and the result was actually very nice, and looked good as well! Shame I can’t show you a picture. I’m going to write down my version of the recipe in case I want to use it again. All rights reserved. © Text copyright Fleur 2023.