Today on Sugar Spun Run I'll be showing you how to make a Swiss roll.
Hey Sugar Spun Bakers! Sam here and today I am so excited to be sharing another carefully tested and researched
recipe. A Swiss roll, or chocolate roulade may look very complicated, but I'm going to be walking you
through the steps very carefully, and yours is going to turn out just like the pictures.
I guarantee it, Now to get started you'll want to preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grab
yourself a mixing bowl and in it we are going to combine one-third cup of all-purpose flour,
1/4 cup of natural cocoa powder, a fourth teaspoon of baking soda,
a half teaspoon of baking powder, and a half teaspoon of salt. Whisk everything together
until these are well combined. Now set that aside and you're going to want to grab yourself two or
three bowls and four large eggs. We're going to divide these eggs into whites and yolks.
Now the easiest way that I've found to separate my egg whites from the yolks is just to crack the egg
and then pass the yolk back and forth from each half of a shell until all of the white falls out.
Alright then I will just drop my yolk into one bowl, and we'll take that egg white and we're going
to pour it into a separate, completely clean, dry, and grease free bowl. I do always like to
separate my whites into a separate container before adding them to the bowl just in case
we get a little bit of yolk in there. That way we don't end up contaminating the whites and having
to toss them all out. We just lose one if we mess up. Now you may notice those stringy white bits in
there, those are just proteins and it's important that they go with the white rather than the yolk.
They're going to add some structural integrity when we go to whip those. Right now we're just
going to be focusing on our egg yolks so you can set the whites aside and we're going to combine
a half cup of granulated sugar with these, and we'll also add 2 tablespoons of firmly packed
light brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of melted unsalted butter, and two teaspoons of pure vanilla extract.
We're gonna whisk these together until the mixture is slightly thickened and it's lightened in color.
Usually this takes about 30 to 60 seconds of vigorous mixing by hand. Now we'll stir
our flour mixture into this egg white mixture until everything is nicely combined. This mixture
is going to be a little bit stiff. That's totally normal. Just make sure everything is well combined.
So set this aside and let's go back to our egg whites that we haven't done anything with yet.
We are going to need to whip these to stiff peaks, which is
going to be quite an arm workout. So you're going to want to either use
a stand mixer, or you can use an electric hand mixer like I'm using.
Make sure that your beaters are completely clean, and dry, and grease free. Just like your bowl is.
You'll also want to have 1/4 cup of granulated sugar measured out and sitting nearby. Now begin
by whipping these eggs to soft peaks. Soft peaks are formed when you lift the beaters
out of the mixture and those little peaks that form fall back in on themselves pretty quickly.
Once you've hit soft peaks we're going to continue mixing on high speed and we're going to gradually
add this granulated sugar, about a tablespoon at a time. I was a little over aggressive there. It's a
little bit more than a tablespoon, but you want to try to be a little bit more gradual than I am. I'll
usually continue to mix on high speed for about 10 to 15 seconds before adding the next tablespoon.
It is going to take several minutes to get to stiff peaks. Don't cop out on this. You want to
make sure you have full, thick, glossy, billowy, stiff peaks. If you stop short then your Swiss roll just
is not going to have the structure it needs. It's going to fall flat. Just keep going until you have
stiff peaks. Now here we have achieved them. As you can see, when I pull the beaters out of the mixture,
that peak that forms hold its shape. If I lift the beater up the peaks on the edge of those
beaters they don't fold or fall over. We have stiff peaks. So only now can we move on to the next step.
Now we need to combine our chocolate mixture and our egg whites, but we want to make sure we're
doing this carefully and gently so that we don't deflate the egg whites and lose all of that air
we just whipped into them. I'm going to use a spatula to just carefully fold these together.
Now you do want the mixture to be nice and cohesive and completely combined.
Just be really gentle with it. Definitely do not use an electric mixer for this step.
We're going to be baking this in a jelly roll pan. Now I like to spray the pan first with a little
bit of baking spray, and then I'll place a piece of parchment over that. The baking spray just helps
the parchment to stick and that way doesn't wiggle too much when you're putting your batter in place.
Now pour your batter over that parchment, and you do want to make sure that you spread it nice and
evenly, because it's actually not going to spread or distribute itself very much more while it's in
the oven. We'll bake this in our preheated oven for about 15 or 16 minutes or until it springs
back when lightly touched. If you lightly press it with your fingertip, and it makes an indent, it
needs a little bit more time in the oven. You don't want to under bake this, otherwise, it's going to be
totally flat and it's not going to turn out right. While the cake is baking you're going to want
to grab yourself a clean kitchen towel. Go ahead and lay this flat and then you're going to need
about two tablespoons of cocoa powder, and you're just going to sift this evenly over the towel.
I'm not going to cover the whole towel because I'm not going to need to use all
of it, but I want to make sure the surface area I'm covering is large enough that it will contain
the cake. I'm using a sifter to distribute this evenly, but if you don't have one just sprinkle
it over the towel and use your hands to make sure it's well distributed. You do want to have
a nice even coating otherwise your cake is going to stick. The whole reason we're using this cocoa
powder is to keep that cake from sticking to the towel. Now once your cake is finished
baking you're going to want to let it rest for two minutes before you invert it onto your towel.
Alright after two minutes we are going to go ahead and flip it quickly over onto our
towel. This part always makes me nervous because you have to be fast and you have to be accurate
with where you place it. Alright that went pretty well. So now we can get rid of this pan
And just carefully and gently remove that parchment paper
from the back of your cake. Be really careful doing this. If any parchment is stuck under
the cake you can just lightly tug it out with your hand, and just peel that right off.
Now start with one of the shorter ends of your towel. I like to just fold this over a little bit
because this is a little long on this side, and we will very carefully, and slowly, and delicately
roll this cake into a roulade. Now we'll very gently lift the cake, and I like to support it. That
way it doesn't break in the center, and we'll place it on a cooling rack for it to cool completely.
While that's cooling I like to prepare my filling. Now you can use
a number of different fillings for making a Swiss roll. Whipped cream is a popular choice.
Some people even like to use cream cheese icing, but I like to use my Ermin frosting. It tastes a
lot like classic Swiss roll filling that you might be familiar with. I highly recommend you give it a
try. I have a batch of Ermine icing prepared that I'll be using in just a minute. It could take
an hour or even longer for your cake to cool completely, but once it no longer feels warm to
the touch it's time to unroll it. Now this can be the most nerve-wracking part of the whole process,
but we're just going to move very carefully, and trust that we did all of the other steps
correctly, and we should have no problem here. Now we will very very gently start to unroll the cake.
And look at that. It came apart beautifully, and completely cleanly.
Now let's grab that Ermine icing and we're just going to spread it evenly over our cake. You do
want to have a nice even layer, and I find that I usually need slightly less than a full batch of
my Ermine frosting, but it's such a small amount less that I usually just make the whole batch.
So once you have a nice even layer of frosting, or filling, we're going to very gently re-roll
this cake, and you want to be very careful, and just try to support the cake as you roll it.
And if you see any small cracks form, those are fine. Don't sweat it.
Those will be covered up once we add our chocolate coating.
This is working beautifully. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
Now I'm going to very carefully transfer this over to a wax paper lined serving platter.
This Swiss roll is going to sit in the fridge while I prepare a simple chocolate glaze. To
make this we'll combine five ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips with three
tablespoons of shortening, and I like to do this in a large measuring cup, because it's heat proof
and microwave safe, and then I can just use the spout to easily drizzle this over my Swiss roll.
Now anytime you're heating chocolate, you want to make sure you do so slowly and pause frequently
to stir the mixture really well. That way you don't seize your chocolate. I'm going to heat this for 30
seconds stir really well, and then heat it in 25 second increments until it's completely smooth.
Now this is supposed to be a really thin coating but I want to wait until it's
no longer super hot before I pour it over my Swiss roll. I'll let it sit for about 10 minutes
stirring periodically and then we can go ahead and drizzle it over our Swiss roll.
I like to use a small offset spatula just to smooth the glaze over the roll.
And then if any of the chocolate drizzles down the sides like mine has here, I'll just scoop it back
up over the Swiss roll and smooth that over the surface. Because our Swiss roll is cold
the chocolate should harden pretty quickly, but I'm just going to pop this back in the fridge
and let it chill for a little bit longer. Now this looks a little bit messy still because all
of that chocolate spilled all over our wax paper. This is exactly why I placed it on wax paper. I'm
just going to use a large spatula to gently pry up my Swiss roll and we can remove that
messy paper. This is optional but it just makes the presentation all that much better.
Alright let's go ahead and cut in. I can't wait to see what it looks like on the inside.
And that is how you make the perfect homemade Swiss roll. Now this is a
slightly more complicated recipe with a little bit of technique, but if you
follow my steps I am sure you can do this at home, and I can't wait to hear what you think.
Thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you next time.
I can't wait for you to try this.