Mini roll cake with Nutella filling

Hello there!  I hope you're enjoying the summer so far and staying cool.  We're in the midst of a heat wave and I feel like I'm in the middle of a summer haze myself, trying to get used to the summer schedule and all the activities that come with it.

Shall we sit a spell and virtually share a slice of this mini roll cake I attempted? It was not a very successful endeavor, to be honest, but at the rate I've been going...I was happy to have something to show for at the end!  It's a mini roll cake from the Dessert for Two cookbook - essentially a sponge cake that I decided to fill with Nutella instead of jam.  All's well taste-wise but rolling the cake was a harrowing experience as it cracked pretty significantly.

Maybe I should have known that simply rolling the cake in foil (as per instructions; and instead of the usual powdered sugar with towel method) was too good to be true. I really wanted to believe and gave it a try...so I watched the cake stick and stick to that foil.  Lesson learned!  With shaky hands, I persevered best I could and in the end, though cracked, we had a roll cake!

The petite cake is baked in an 8" square brownie pan, a good small size for our little family for a mid-afternoon treat.  To be honest, it can be hard to find time to sit down to a mid-afternoon treat in the summer but we managed to gobble this down.  

So...I hinted at not being exactly "on a roll" (haha) lately in the kitchen.  Aside from forgetting the baking powder in a batch of pancakes the other day, I also had a total dud trying to make Dominique Ansel's flourless chocolate cookies.  We went out to brunch in Manhattan last weekend and happened to stop by Dominique Ansel Kitchen (Cronut creator, Dominique Ansel's bakery/restaurant).  We were full but took home a flourless chocolate cookie, which turned out to be amazing!  Aside from being perfectly chocolaty, I couldn't believe how it could be flourless because the cookie was so thick and dense - yet moist.  I found the recipe online and was so excited.  But suffice it to say, the making of that cookie is still a mystery to be because mine were a delicious gooey puddle.   I ended up using some of the warm cookies as a chocolate "sauce" with vanilla ice cream and I froze the rest so we could handle/eat them - they were very tasty but nothing like the ones at the shop.  So maybe you can see why I'm grateful I had some cake to show for this latest kitchen endeavor, cracks or not!  

  

Chocolate roll cake with mocha cream filling

Instead of kicking off the holiday season with cookies (though there will surely be plenty of those), I decided to make a roll cake, which I associate with the holidays since it makes me think of yule logs.  

There's no fancy woodland decorations here, I'm afraid, but let's just take a dusting of powdered sugar and a handful of imagination, and fit this cake into the holiday theme. Everything seems to take on a special holiday glow this time of year and I just love it!

Now, you might call this a roulade, a jelly roll, or a swiss roll, but I'll just call it a roll cake for simplicity sake.  I only very recently ventured into making a roll cake with the matcha-red bean version but I feel like this is my first "official" roll cake endeavor and I think I just may have overcome fears of making this type of cake.  

Since my desserts have about a 90% likelihood of involving chocolate, it's not surprising I made a chocolate roll cake.   I started with a recipe that caught my eye in a recent issue of Cooking Light.  I thought I'd make a smaller version so I took the base chocolate sponge cake recipe and divided it in half.  I baked my cake in a quarter - as opposed to half - sheet pan so the roll is 9-inches long.  I like making small batches, especially when I'm first road-testing a recipe, but I have to say my husband suggested I make a regular size of this next time!  Instead of following through with the suggested lemon filling, I thought, more chocolate...because that's just how we roll!  In the end, I decided to make a mocha whipped cream filling to give the cake a little bit of dimension beyond pure chocolate.    

I had no issues making this cake, even adjusting it for a smaller version.  It takes a couple of steps to separately whip the egg yolks and whites, and to ultimately incorporate everything together, but with a gentle hand (and a clean dish towel), there were no mishaps like cracks in the cake to worry about.  I wound up with a light, moist, spongy chocolate cake, and a creamy, soft chocolate-coffee cream filling; it was just as it should be.  In other words, I had a great dessert to share with my family.

I have to agree with my husband...I should have made a bigger roll!  Next time, it'll be a regular size roll for sure.