Chocolate Jelly Roll Cake

Chocolate Jelly Roll Cake
4 large eggs
2/3 cup granulated (white) sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup all-purpose (plain) flour
4 teaspoons water

Preheat oven to 400◦F. Line a 10x15 inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.
Beat eggs and sugar until thick and pale. Beat in vanilla.
Sift in the cocoa and flour and fold in with the water.
Spread batter evenly in prepared pan.
Bake about 12 miunutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Immediately invert cake onto a clean tea towel dusted with sifted icing sugar. Peel off parchment. Dust top of cake with icing sugar. Roll up hot cake in tea towel from short end and leave to cool.

Once cool, unroll cake, spread with filling, reroll, and garnish as desired.

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Roll

This is the chocolate cake I made for my mom for Mothers' Day this year.She requested a simple plain chocolate cake, and since we didn't need a large cake, I decided to make a jelly roll. The cake is just a basic chocolate jelly roll cake recipe. The filling/frosting and glaze on top I made using an instant chocolate pudding mix we had on hand, some milk, icing sugar, and vanilla extract. I used the frosting to spread on the cake then rolled it up, poured it with chocolate glaze, and piped on some additional chocolate frosting. Simple, tasty, and easy to do.

Happy Mothers' Day!!!

Basic Crêpes and Salmon Roll

Happy Pancake Tuesday! Today I am going to share my basic crêpe (thin pancake) recipe and a good use for it!

Basic Crêpe Batter
2 cups milk
2 large eggs
1 cup all-purpose (plain) flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon granulated (white) sugar, for sweet crêpes, optional
Add dry spices or finely chopped fresh herbs, as desired 

Whisk together the milk and eggs, then whisk in the dry ingredients. Batter may seem lumpy, even if you sift the flour before hand. I nthis case, you can use a handheld immersion blender to smooth it out, or pass it through a sieve. You can also use it as is, if you don't mind a few lumps. It may seem thin, but crêpe batter should be thinner than pancake batter. If you think it is too thin, add a little more flour.

To cook, use a well-greased skillet, being sure to wipe out any excess oil. You should not need to grease it between each crêpe, just at the beginning. Pour one tablespoon to 1/4 cup batter in the skillet (depending on the size skillet and how big of a crêpe you would like). Cook until set, flip, and cook briefly again. Like all crêpe recipes, the first crêpe usually doesn't turn out great - use it to test the flavor!

For the appetizer pictured here, I combined some poached salmon with mayo, whole grain mustard, chopped dill, and a little lemon juice. I spread it on the crêpes, rolled them up, and sliced thinly, sort of like a jelly roll. I served it with some cucumber spaghetti, sweet mayo, and a sprig of dill.

Turkey Roll With Stuffing

This is a little something different, a recipe I came across in a low-fat cookbook that looked yummy and intriguing. The outside is just like a meatloaf, but made with ground turkey instead. The inside is just like stuffing, and together they are like a savory jelly-roll. You could use white wine in place of the water in both the pan juice and to make the sauce if you prefer.

Turkey Roll With Stuffing
1 teaspoon oil or margarine
1 cup chopped white onion
1 cup grated carrot
1 cup fine dry bread crumbs
1 chicken bouillon cube
3/4 cup boiling water
herbs and spices, as desired, if breads crumbs are not seasoned
1 pound lean ground turkey
1 large egg
1/4 cup fine dry bread crumbs
salt, pepper, and garlic to taste
1 cup water

In a large frying pan over medium heat sauté the onion and carrot in the oil for about ten minutes until softened. Remove from heat and stir in bread crumbs. Dissolve the bouillon in the water and add along with seasoning. 

In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients except water. Spread out this mixture evenly onto a large sheet of waxed paper to a rectangle 10x14 inches, with no gaps. Cover this meat with the stuffing mixture. Roll up tightly from a short side, removing the waxed paper as it is rolled. Place roll in a greased roasting pan. 

Cover and bake at 350◦F for an hour. Pour the water into the pan and bake for an additional 30 minutes, basting twice with juices. Remove to a platter and let stand briefly, tented with foil.

To make a sauce or gravy: use the pan drippings, extra chicken broth, and cornstarch to whisk together to form a gravy while the loaf is resting. 

Pizza Stromboli

For supper, I decided to try something a little different than the usual pizzas we make. I found a recipe for what was called "Family-Style Stromboli". It appeared to be a pizza in jelly-roll form. It seemed interesting and tasty enough, so I decided to give it a try. I just used the dough recipe for the crust, and chose fillings to please my family. The original recipe used more vegetables in their filling and less pizza meats than I did. The result was even better than I had expected! This is a very nice dough to work with - it is soft and easy to shape, doesn't tear easily, and when baked, is soft and fluffy. The toppings baked nicely into the crust (I recommend using lots of cheese), and the roll cut well. I would definitely make this again in place of pizza any day - it is quicker and actually easier, and I might just argue that it is tastier too!

Pizza Stromboli
2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 package quick-rise yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup warm water
3 Tablespoons oil

Preheat oven to 400◦F. Grease a baking sheet, or line with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, mix 1 cup flour with the yeast, sugar, and salt. Add water then oil, mix until well blended. Stir in 1/4 cup of the remaining flour at a time, working the flour in to make a soft dough. Spread dough into a large rectangle (about 16x9 inches) on the prepared baking sheet.
Spread dough with a modest amount of pizza sauce, and sprinkle with your favorite toppings (sliced meats, finely chopped vegetables, grated cheese, etc.) Go easy on the toppings, too many and they will just fall out and the roll will not roll properly.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or until crust is golden. Let the roll rest for 10 minutes (if you can) before slicing, it will make much neater slices instead of just falling apart.

S'more Pull Aparts

Here is an intriguing recipe I came across in a bread recipe booklet. Since there was some leftover cottage cheese from our lasagna supper, I decided to make these S'more Pull Aparts which interestingly use 3/4 cup of cottage cheese. The cottage cheese keeps these rolls, similar to cinnamon rolls, incredibly moist and tender. The dough also uses buttermilk, and can easily be mixed up in a food processor. The dough is then kneaded briefly, spread with melted butter, and sprinkled with graham cracker crumbs, milk chocolate chips, and ground cinnamon. Once rolled up and cut, the twelve rolls are placed in a springform pan, brushed with more melted butter, and baked for 20 minutes. Then they are sprinkled with miniature marshmallows and more chocolate chips and baked for 5-10 more minutes. The only change I would suggest is to use a bit less graham cracker crumbs and more chocolate chips, but that's just my personal taste! The dough is very nice and easy to work with, easy to cut too, although a little bit of the filling may seep out. A very yummy way to enjoy a different twist on s’mores in the off-season, while enjoying a cinnamon roll too!

S'more Pull Aparts

¾ cup cottage cheese

1/3 cup buttermilk

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups white all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

FILLING

1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted, divided

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

¾ cup milk chocolate chips

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

TOPPING

1 ¼ cups miniature marshmallows

¼ cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400◦F. Line a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper.

In a food processor, combine the cottage cheese, buttermilk, butter, and vanilla, process until very smooth. Add remaining dry ingredients, pulse together just until dough looks like a mass of small beads, beginning to clump together (I mixed the cottage cheese, buttermilk, and butter in the food processor, but did the rest by hand, as my food processor was not large enough).

Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead for one minute until smooth. Roll dough out to a 12x15-inch rectangle.

Brush surface with two tablespoons of the melted butter, leaving a ½ inch border all around. Combine the graham cracker crumbs and two tablespoons of melted butter, sprinkle over dough. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and cinnamon.

Starting at long end, roll up dough jelly roll style, pinch seam to seal. Cut dough into twelve equal-sized pieces with a serrated knife. Arrange in prepared pan. Brush with remaining melted butter.

Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with marshmallows and chocolate chips. Return to oven for 5-10 minutes until lightly browned. Cool for 10 minutes, then unmold. Serve warm, or reheat in the microwave.

 "Easy S'mores Pull Aparts.” http://www.robinhood.ca/recipedetails.aspx?rid=4891. Robin Hood, n.d. Friday, November 18, 2011. 

Jelly Roll Cake

I whipped up a chocolate jelly roll cake tonight for a dessert I am planning to finish tomorrow. A jelly roll cake is a large, flat cake that is filled and rolled up into a log. As the name suggests, it can be filled with jelly, but it can also be filled with a wide variety of other fillings. A few examples are: whipped cream, frosting, peanut butter, chocolate spread, jam, ganache, buttercream, and even ice cream. These cakes are baked in a large pan, which is essentially a cookie sheet with sides. It is not actually a jelly roll unless you fill it with jelly and roll it up, so I guess what I'm making is called a chocolate roll. You can make cakes in a jelly roll pan without rolling them, called sheet cakes; this way you get a large cake to feed a crowd, with some icing on every bite! An example of this is Chocolate Texas Sheet Cake, which is an excellent dessert option for potlucks. Here is the master recipe I normally use to make jelly rolls. It is a pretty simple and straight-forward recipe. To make a chocolate jelly roll, I just replace 1/4 cup of flour with unsweetened cocoa powder.

Jelly Roll Cake
4 eggs, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup all-purpoise flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
icing sugar

Grease 10x15-inch jelly roll pan. Line with waxed paper.
Beat eggs in mixing bowl until frothy. Add sugar and beat until light colored and thick. Mix in water and vanilla.
Sift flour, baking powder and salt over egg mixture and fold in.
Turn into prepared pan. Bake in 400◦F oven for 12-15 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Sift icing sugar over tea towel. Turn cake out onto sugar. Peel off waxed paper. Trim crisp edges if any. Roll from narrow end, towel and cake together. Cool. Unroll. Fill with filling. Reroll.

Here is a picture of my cake roll cooling.

Paré, Jean. "Jelly Roll." Recipe. Desserts, Edmonton Alberta: Company's Coming Publishing Limited, 1989. 22

Chocolate Ice Cream Roll

Today I made a Chocolate Ice Cream Roll. Well, actually I made it yesterday but it had to freeze overnight, so I did not get to enjoy it until today. I made a chocolate cake roll using my jelly roll pan, and allowed it to cool. Then I filled it with Hoofprints ice cream, rolled it back up, wrapped it, and froze it. Today, it was solid enough to cut easily, but soft enough to eat without breaking any teeth. The ice cream roll turned out great! Chocolatey and refreshing. It was reminiscent of ice cream cake, except with actual cake!

You know those GINORMOUS tubs of ice cream that organizations sell to fundraise? Well, we bought one of course, and since there was a lack of hot, sunny days this past week, no one was in the mood for any ice cream. So I decided to use some of it up in a dessert. There is still a ton left, but maybe I'll find another ice cream recipe!