TWD: Vanilla Chiffon Roll

Tuesdays with Dorie baking through Baking with Julia
by Dorie Greenspan
Contributing Baker: Mary Bergin

 

For such a "simple" cake - having only two main components, it sure did have what seemed like a lot of steps, and used a ton of dishes. I do not recall having the same experience when I made a spiced pumpkin roulade several years ago. (Memories do fade though..)

The recipe calls for a walnut mousse - I had hazelnuts on hand and used those. This of course added an extra step - skinning of the nuts.

The filling is made up of a nut paste, melted chocolate, egg yolks, sugar, water and heavy cream. To make the paste, the nuts are puréed with oil until a paste forms. I think using walnuts would give the paste a smoother consistency. However, I did not mind the texture the hazelnuts lent to the filling.

Add your nut paste mixture to the beaten eggs and fold until incorporated.

Once the chocolate is incorporated, (this is where the whipped cream should have been incorporated as well), then refrigerate until needed.

The instructions say to trim the edges of the cake. I only trimmed the shorter ends - the ones that will be exposed. Though that may have been unnecessary - for once the cake was completed, I trimmed the ends again, to give it a cleaner appearance.

The recipe states that the mousse may be made one day ahead. Refrigerate, and stir before using. I chilled the mousse only for the time it took to make the cake. It was solid. No amount of stirring was going to make this spreadable. I placed my bowl (stainless steel) over a burner until it was at a consistency that could be spread easily.

However, this ruins the fluffy texture you have with a mousse. Still, the filling was quite tasty.

The assembled cake, ready for chilling.

I recommend letting the cake come to room temperature before decorating. In the time that I sprinkled the powdered sugar and cocoa on, and moved the cake to the other side of the counter to take a picture, the powdered sugar had already started to dissolve.

If my mousse had turned out the way it was supposed to, there would have been a lot more filling to cake ratio. (Upon re-reading the recipe as I type this, I just realized I forgot to add the heavy whipping cream to the filling! Oops.)

The cake is soft, moist and has a pleasant vanilla flavor from the addition of two tablespoons of vanilla. Do make sure to use a good quality, pure vanilla, not vanilla flavoring for this cake. I was fortunate enough to use homemade vanilla that our daughter had gifted me.

I liked the flavor of the hazelnut filling - better than I would if I had used walnuts, I'm sure. Even with both the cake and the filling being tasty on their own, I felt the completed roll tasted rather plain. The cake definitely would have benefited if served with some sort of sauce - raspberry, chocolate, or even some whipped cream. (Or maybe even the inadvertently omitted whipping cream.)

The recipe states this will serve six. The finished roll, after trimming was about sixteen inches long. This will easily serve ten to twelve, unless you want extra large slices. 


To see the results, and other versions of this cake from all of the talented bakers in the group, click here for their links, or go to the Tuesdays with Dorie website and look for the link: LYL: Vanilla Chiffon Roll.

You can find the recipe by clicking here, or on page 277 of Baking with Julia.

TWD: Plum Upside-Down Chiffon Cake

Tuesdays with Dorie baking through Baking with Julia
by Dorie Greenspan

                              















This week's (well, last week's - I'm late) recipe was Nectarine Upside-Down Chiffon Cake. The recipe was contributed by baker Mary Bergin. As you can see from the title of my post, I substituted plums for the nectarines.

This was a pretty straight forward, relatively simple cake to make. Reading my fellow bloggers comments about their experience making this cake, several mentioned it did not bake in the alloted time frame. I set the timer for the maximum time given in the recipe, at which time it started to give off a burnt smell. Usually I can tell by the scent of a cake when it is done; however there was no wonderful aroma permeating my kitchen like I am used to when I bake a cake.

After flipping the cake out of the pan, it showed no signs of burning - whew. It also smelled really good and I was looking forward to serving and devouring this creation. The crumbs from the pan had great flavor, which gave me high hopes for this cake.

Unfortunately this cake was not a hit for me or for the girls as I can tell. It certainly looked pretty, but was just OK. I was hoping for more of a WOW factor. I made this for girls night, and though everyone ate their slice, there was no rave reviews I normally receive for my desserts.

Success meter (1-3): 2

Plums and pluots.

Oh so pretty!

The fruit is layered on top of a brown sugar butter mixture.

The streusel filling.

The scent was reminiscent of...

something I know...

I just can't place it.

Something tasty.

Ready for toasting!

I do believe the center collapsing is normal.

To even out the cake, I placed parchment paper over

the cake, and used a bottom of a springform pan

to press the edges even with the center.

Whoala!

The cake released with no problems.

The drippings tasted so good...

Beautiful!

Even though the batter rearranged the slices somewhat.

The neighborhood crows.

For the recipe, visit this week's hosts: 

Marlise of The Double Trouble Kitchen

and

Susan of The Little French Bakery

To see other takes on this cake go to the LYL page over at Tuesdays with Dorie

for links to all the bakers that attempted this dessert.