Henry David Thoreau admonished us to “beware of all enterprises that require new clothes” … but what about enterprises that require new cooking equipment? I suspect he would have dissed those as well.

But as I was determined to bake Paul Fehribach’s Jelly Roll Cake recipe in The Big Jones Cookbook (from the pages of which I’d previously cooked chicken and dumplings, circa 1920) for the annual 4th of July bash thrown by John Pomeranz and Kathi Overton, and had never before made a jelly roll, I was forced to buy a new pan and send Thoreau spinning in his grave.

And so, armed with a jelly roll pan, I got started.

Creating the batter was easy enough (when you have the right device) …

With my wife's baking done, my apricot jelly roll (based on Chef Paul Fehribach's recipe) is now in progress!

A video posted by Scott Edelman (@scottedelman) on Jul 3, 2015 at 1:09pm PDT

… and spreading that batter in the pan—lined with both parchment and butter—was simple as well.

However … after 18 minutes in a 375-degree oven (the recipe called for 18-20 minutes or “until set and golden brown”) …

… the resulting cake proved a wee bit overdone to … well .. roll.

As you can see below, once spread with apricot jelly, the cake bent and kinked rather than forming perfect spirals.

Everybody thought it tasted great regardless, with one person even suggesting I should simply call the thing “folded apricot jelly cake” so that no one would be expecting spirals, all of which I appreciated. But I still wanted to understand why it turned out that way.

First I used a thermometer to check our oven was keeping to an accurate temperature (it was), and then consulted our other recipe books to see what they recommended for creating a cake which would still be soft enough to roll.

The Boston Cooking School Cook Book lowers both the temperature to 350 degrees and the time to 12 minutes.

A World of Baking also lowers the temperature to 350 degrees, but keeps the time at 18-20 minutes.

Chocolate Cookery keeps the same 375-degree oven Fehribach recommended, but drops the time to 10-12 minutes.

James Beard, in American Cookery, raises the temperature, to 400 degrees, but also lowers the time to 8-9 minutes.

And our three Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks are at war with themselves. Our 1940s edition calls for 400 degrees and 10-15 minutes, our mid-’70s edition 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes, and our 1989 edition 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

All of which means—

Time to experiment with both times and temperatures by making a lot more jelly rolls! The only question is, which of my friends and family will get to eat them?