Christmas Swiss Roll

I am alive!

I am sorry I have not been posting – I went away to Europe (thoroughly enjoyed myself – I now want to move to Germany for 6 months if I have the chance!) and have just been so busy catching up with everything when I got back that I just did not have the time or energy to come up with any inspiration. Things have changed though and today I finally got round to making something.

To be honest, I am not the most talented when it comes to Swiss rolls – more often than not they become cake sandwiches. This was a slightly fancier version as well as I had decided to pipe holly leaves and cranberries as a motif.

Recipe as follows:

Ingredients and equipment

2 eggs
110g optima flour (an Asian sponge cake mix)
15ml water
1 tsp vanilla essence
30g butter, melted
Food colouring of choice
20cm x 30cm baking pan
Silicone coated baking paper
Disposable piping bags

Method

1. Line tin with silicone coated baking paper.
2. Whisk eggs, flour, water and vanilla together until light in colour and double in volume – this may take up to 5-10 minutes depending on the speed of your mixer.
3. Add melted butter to the mixture and fold in until full incorporated.
4. Remove a tablespoon of mixture and add colour as desired – in my case I made one tablespoon red and the other green. Place coloured mixture into piping bags.
5. Pipe patterns as desired onto the baking paper in the tin. Place in freezer until fully set (1-2 hours).
6. Preheat oven to 160°C (fan-forced).
7. Pour remaining batter over frozen pattern and even out with spatula. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
8. Remove from oven and roll. Fill with desired filling.

Tip: Roll the cake as soon as it is out of the oven to prevent cracks from forming and make sure the cake is not over baked.

Just a simple project – hopefully I get into more complex things in the near future but for now – that’s it! Glad to be back.