Monday, September 13, 2010

It's the Great Pumpkin Roll, Charlie Brown!

I'm not sure why, but roulades have always frightened me a little.  I think the idea of dumping a cake onto a tea towel, rolling it up, unrolling it to fill, then re-rolling it has always seemed rather unnatural.  Yet, I do love eating them.  What this means is that I'm generally restricted to specimens from the bakery or grocery store.

No more!

This weekend, I tried my hand at one of my favorite rolled cakes, the pumpkin roll.  I used the recipe I mentioned in a previous post for Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Filling with two minor changes.  First, I added vanilla extract to the cake batter.  Second, I used toasted pecans instead of walnuts.  Oh, I also doubled the recipe, because I just didn't buy that "serves 10-12" nonsense.  I used a half-sheet pan instead of two small jelly roll pans.

The initial roll.
One giant pumpkin roll.


The pretty half that fit on a platter.

It was a huge hit.  Of course, it's hard to go wrong with pumpkin, nuts, and cream cheese.  That said, I will make a couple of minor adjustments next time.  I'll make a single batch of batter, but still bake it in a 12x18 pan (for 10 minutes, perhaps?).  I'll then be able to spread the filling thinner.  More roll for my roll, if you know what I mean.

Moral of the story:  Roulades are fun and not that difficult.  Even if you get some cracking (I did), they come together and look really impressive.  They're the swirly way to...

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