Roll cake recipe work

Elsieb · December 19, 2016, 11:42am

Have been working on replicating a childhood cake that we all loved. It was often served by our grandfather’s cook, who was an amazing cook!! It was a chocolate roll cake with a whipped cream & nesselrode filling (I changed nesselrode to candied orange peel), and a thin chocolate glaze. After many, many attempts (none of them inedible:), I am close but not quite right on the cake part. His cake was a very dark, shiny, stretchy roll cake. Mine is just more cake like, good, but not what I am trying for. I am using 5 eggs, 1 c sugar, 3 oz flour, 1.3 oz cocoa, 3 T coffee, vanilla salt and 3/4 t BP. Beating yolks and white separately. Baking @ 350˚ 20m.

Any suggestions on changing proportions will be appreciated. More eggs? Less flour?
Thanks!

naf · December 19, 2016, 2:37pm

Normally I think your roll should work with your recipe, did you beat the white enough? Actually if you beat the white enough, I don’t see why you need to use BP. It’s more airy and shiny with just the white. Take care when you mix the white and the other ingredients, so the mixture remains airy.

How about 6 eggs, separate the yolk from the white, and use 3 white to whip and ignore the BP. Baking 15 minutes instead of 20 m. This is Pierre Hermé’s roll recipe, the sugar is twice the weight of the flour.

It is also advised when rolling the cake, it’s better on a slightly wet towel.

greygarious · December 19, 2016, 4:01pm

Presumably you already know that the cake should be rolled while warm, allowed to cool while rolled, then gently unrolled when you are ready to fill it.

Elsieb · December 19, 2016, 6:12pm

“It’s more airy and shiny with just the white.”

Thanks, I like that thought and to dump the BP. Time for one more trial run before Saturday.

Babette · December 20, 2016, 2:26am

How about a little fat in there somewhere… oil or melted butter?

naf · December 20, 2016, 6:28pm

One more thing. Eggs should be of room temperature.

Elsieb · December 21, 2016, 1:00am

Yes, eggs are room temp. Two changes to experiment on…egg amount and oil addition. We’ve been fiddling with this recipe for quite some time now. I’ll report back with any meaningful results. Thanks for the input.