Swiss Roll with Strawberry Jam & Cream

Swiss Roll, Jelly Roll and Roulade, are all the same names for a rolled up sponge cake. This recipe you are about to read and try to make, is a made, tested and approved cake. Before I post any recipes, I am sure to at least bake or cook something 3 times to ensure that the recipe is right. Each time a cake is baked, I will have a group of people (whom I called my toughest critics), that are known to love cakes and are great kitchen experts themselves. I have also taken the liberty to cross check recipes with other good online blogs or websites like joyofbaking.com and thebakingpan.com. 

There were two reasons why I made this cake, 1) because I hate store made Swiss rolls, as they will always use cheap jams and spread hardly anything in it and sold for RM6.00. Very unreasonable. 2) Because a good friend of mine is currently pregnant and I got her worked up on my quest to make my own yummy (perfect) cake.

Preparation Time: 1 hourStorage: 1 week refrigerated (that's if you can manage to stall people from eating)Cost: RM 12  Yield: 2 - 3 rolls of 10" cakes

Ingredients

127g plain flour

½ tsp of salt

4 large eggs, separated

127g Castor sugar

2 tbsp of vanilla extract

3 tbsp of strawberry jam

2 tbsp of icing sugar

clean kitchen towel or baking paper 

powdered sugar

for Cream200ml heavy cream
2 tbsp of icing sugar

Method

1) Preheat your oven to 220C. You can either line your pan with baking paper or use the butter and flour technique to prevent your cake from sticking to the pan. I didn't have a proper Swiss roll pan, but I used my 9" x 9" cake tin. I filled in about an inch of batter or less into the cake tin. This batter should yield about 2 - 3 cake sheets. 

2) Mix your dry ingredients into a bowl, set aside.

3) Into another bowl, beat your egg yolks with an electric mixer till you get a rather smooth egg batter, about 30% lighter from its original colour. To this you will add half the sugar content and beat till it fluffs up 3 times more. You stop once the colour turns a rather pale yellow and till it leaves a ribbon trail when you lift the mixer away from the batter. Once you get to this consistency, add in the vanilla extract.

4)Sift gradually the dry ingredients over the egg yolk mix and gently fold the flour content. Don't worry if it gets too dry as the eggs whites will bounce it back into shape.

5) In a clean bowl, with clean whisks, beat the egg whites with the remaining sugar till you get soft peaks. This means till your egg whites form a soft peaks that bends over when created into peaks on the surface. If it stays in position when you make tiny peaks, this is the consistency you make meringue with. You don't want that. The fluffy egg whites will contribute to the airy soft texture to your cake, that when you eat it later, it just floats and melts away in your mouth.

6) Fold gently the egg whites to the prepared batter. You will notice your batter will instantly become lighter in weight. 

7) Pour your batter into the cake pan, about 1/3. If your pan is thinner, then fill it up half way up. Any thicker will cause the cake to break when rolled. Place the cake pan in the middle of the oven. Bake at 220C for 10 minutes or till the top surface is brown. Keep an eye on the cake, because it is thin, it cooks faster than normal cakes.

8) In the mean time, you can beat your cream frosting. Beat your heavy cream and sugar till soft peaks form. Keep refrigerated till you are ready to use it.

9) Before your cake is done, prepare a clean kitchen towel or baking paper on a flat surface dusted with powdered sugar.  Once the cake is done, take it out and let cool a bit before you handle it. When slightly cooled, turn the pan over the dusted surface and gently roll the cake with the towel. The towel or baking paper prevents the cake from sticking to itself as it cools off. Place on a wired rack to cool.

10) Once the cake has cooled down, spread the strawberry jam followed by the cream about 1" or less away from the edges. Roll the cake up. Then wrap it with a bit of cling wrap and keep it in the fridge for a couple of hours to set the cake. 1 hour is good enough or if you are patient, overnight.

11) Dust the top with powdered sugar if desired before serving. 

TIP: You can substitute this with Pineapple Jam without the cream. A local favourite for those residing in the south of Peninsular Malaysia.

Have a question? Write to cookinginbatches(at)gmail.com