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...

Keep it sweet. Pin It