Perusing through the Mary Berry Baking Bible I, of course, found a recipe for something I have always wanted to make. A Swiss roll. Do you know what a Swiss roll is? It's often made on The Great British Baking Show. I'm not sure why it's called a Swiss roll, but it's basically a really thin sponge cake rolled up with a layer of jam in the middle. It looks so cool, which is why I've always wanted to make it. I wanted to see if something I baked could look as cool as those Swiss rolls
in the photos I've seen.
So I did it. And I had to do it twice. I followed the recipe to a T, both times. The cake is baked in a 9x13 tin; it turns out quite thin. I baked it at the longer end of what the recipe recommended; it ended up being too long. The cake turned out very spongy, which did not look like the photo. The cake in the Mary Berry book looked fluffy; mine looked dense. I started to think I used too many eggs, but I read over the ingredients and measurements again, and I did it correctly. I'm not sure what happened there.
I pulled the cake out of the oven, turned it out and let it cool for just a few minutes. Then I spread my trusty strawberry jam over it. It's important to let it cool before you spread the jam. If the cake is too hot, the jam will soak into it, which is not ideal. Jam was spread; it did not soak into the cake, so far so good. Then for the rolling.
First the cake needs to be scoured about an inch in from the rolling edge to help start the roll, which I did, being very careful not to cut all the way through the cake. I didn't have the forethought to look up the best way to roll the cake. Since it was pretty dense (and I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be), the roll did not turn out as circular as it should have. It ended up being more rectangular, which you can see from the photos. While rolling the cake, I had memories of watching The Great British Baking Show. Whenever a roll is made the judges always look at the "swirl." At the end of my baking, I judged my own swirl and . . . it was non-existent. I was angry, frustrated but not defeated. All it meant was . . . I had to start over, all over, from the beginning, from scratch. Fortunately, I still had all the ingredients to make a second one.
This meant measuring the ingredients again, using my trusty scale again, mixing everything again, pouring into pan again and into the oven. I baked the cake just a few minutes less this time, but it still turned out pretty dense. The only cause would be too much egg or not enough flour . . . but I measured all that, twice. I'm baffled. The recipe states to bake it for a certain amount of time or "until it turns golden." Neither time did mine turn golden. The first one I baked longer, and you could tell. The second one I baked shorter, and it didn't change color at all.
I did watch a video on the best way to roll the cake as well as read some tips. For this attempt, I pulled the parchment paper to assist in the rolling, using one hand to roll the cake and the other to pull the parchment paper up and forward; it turned out great. One tip was to do this before spreading the jam when the cake was still warm and to let it cool a little in the rolled shape because that would help it form the desired shape once the jam is spread. I did let it cool rolled up and then slowly unrolled it, spread the jam on, and rolled again.
This time I got the desired swirl of jam. The difference between the two cakes is obvious. The only changes were bake time and rolling technique. I still think I should bake it again, whether I use less egg or bake it for an even shorter period of time or both. This needs a third attepmt. I'll circle back around.
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