We’re On a Roll!

Kate-

Cake for birthdays? Yes, please! I mean, is there anything more iconic than birthday cake? Also, who isn’t happy when they get cake that was made just for them?  Sarah and I have a friend whose birthday is coming up, and who has been having a bit of a rough time in her life, so we thought…since we can’t see her on her birthday, why not send a bit of baked love with her sister? I knew her favorite cake flavor was red velvet, and we’d initially decided to do cupcakes.  But the logistics of getting cupcakes from here to her with 6 hours of car ride plus a four year old…well…

My solution was to make a Swiss cake roll, which I really only just discovered this past year after buying Mary Berry’s Baking Bible. They’re ridiculously fast to make, and relatively easy too.  I had to do some research, and found a red velvet swiss cake roll recipe that seemed pretty straightforward, and had most of the ingredients I look for in my red velvet cakes.  I found the recipe at Confessions of a Confectionista and ended up tweaking some of the recipe – I used maybe half of the sugar in the frosting, and I will say, and Sarah can agree or not, if I make it again I will replace the oil with melted butter. I missed that buttery yumminess that can be found in really good red velvet cake, but it was not a dealbreaker at all!

Sarah-

I totally agree about the butter.  Not that the cake roll turned out badly. It had great flavor and did all the things it was meant to do include being visually so pretty  . My sister had sent me her pumpkin cake roll recipe last fall I put it aside as something I might try on down the line, but not a quick throw together. It looked complicated and as a single mom working a full time job I didn’t think I had time for it. My fears were totally unfounded, of course. What an awesome cake!

Kate-

Because Swiss Cake Rolls are so fast to bake, I decided to hedge our bets and make two.  It really didn’t take much more time than making one, especially since I measured out ingredients for both at the same time.

It also allowed for a little experimentation.  The recipe from Confectionista called for using a hand mixer, but I am between hand mixers at the moment, so I had to decide if I should do the eggs with a paddle or a whisk.  I decided to do one of each (if I’d been smart, and had remembered to look at my Mary Berry book, I wouldn’t have experimented).  The clear winner for volume, as you can see in the pictures, is the whisk.

Sarah-

The whisk was a winner to be sure. However, even without the whisk, the paddled cake turned out tasty and edible, so don’t despair if you don’t have all the equipment.  The important thing is to try. We are learning here and experimenting. Our hope is to make baking and cooking more approachable for everyone and that we can inspire people to try even the most daunting recipes.

While our cakes were baking, Kate and I researched a bit of cake history to find out just where Red Velvet cake came from. Not only did we find one origin story, we found several! It seems more than one person wanted to lay claim to the creation of this colorful confection. If you are interested in a historical cake controversy, there is a great article from Kim Severson and the New York Times. Long story short, the Red Velvet cake was originally served with an Ermine frosting or boiled milk frosting and the cake itself seems to be a 20th century creation from the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and Adams Extract company sometime in the 1920’s. There is plenty of debate among cake historians as to who actually made it first and as to when cream cheese frosting was added to the cake. It is an American cake that did go out of style during the 1970’s and 80’s but is back in full favor (and flavor) today.

When it came to adding the red color, we opted for gel food coloring. Why? Kate explained that the addition of too much liquid food coloring could break your batter and throw off the proportions of ingredients resulting in a flatter, more dense cake.

Kate-

Red velvet cakes require so much red food coloring (a tablespoon or more!), that in a really delicate sponge like a swiss roll, it can be disastrous to add so much extra liquid to your batter.  I noticed immediately that even with the small amount of liquid food coloring we used (I ran out of gel, darn it), all of the body we’d achieved with whipping the eggs vanished.  I was actually quite worried that it had negatively impacted the cakes, but I think it turned out fine in the end.

Sarah-

Once the cakes were baked, I had to face my fear of flipping.  If it was done incorrectly or too slow, the cake would fall off of the pan and split making it useless for making a Swiss Roll at all.  I let Kate do the first one. She did it effortlessly and quickly rolled it into a sugar powdered tea towel for cooling in the fridge.

Kate-

You have to do the flip/peel/roll as soon as the cake comes out of the oven, because if you don’t get it rolled while it is still very hot, it will crack or worse – not roll at all!  It helps if you have “asbestos fingers” to do it, but if you don’t, the towel does provide a bit of insulation against the heat.

Sarah-

Then it was my turn. I held my breath and the pan, and I DID IT!!! with a quick flip the cake landed squarely in a full sheet on the powdered tea towel. I could breathe again! From there on out it was stress free cooling of the cakes and the making of the cream cheese frosting. We stuck with the cream cheese frosting and will try the Ermine another time. We knew our audience and were aiming to please.  A comforting cream cheese frosted Red Velvet Swiss Cake Roll was in the works.

Now that I know how quickly a cake roll can be made and how impressive it looks sliced,  I will be trying that pumpkin roll recipe from my sister.