Whats the difference between a Swiss and a Dutch Roll?

A little later this week for our baking instalment due to a very good friend celebrating her 40^th Birthday on Saturday night.  Needless to say, the last thing on my mind was baking on Sunday.  Charlotte was overcome with sympathy for my delicate state, offering to cook scrambled eggs, or poached eggs, or fried eggs or even French toast – now she’s not bad with an egg is our Charlie, but I think there was a little devil in her and she was enjoying seeing me squirm – at least it helped her get over her disappointment.  I took the girls instead to see the Muppet movie, which apparently was great – I had a little nana nap and felt much better.

Happily for Charlotte, there was a national teacher strike on Tuesday, so it was all systems go for Swiss Roll production. There are three in the book; a plain one, a lemon one and a chocolate one so we are going to do the lot and hopefully by the end of today we’ll know what we are doing.  Swiss Roll for me really takes me back to being a kid, I used to love them in all there guises especially the Cadbury individual chocolate ones with the yummiest chocolaty filling wrapped in chocolate (you get the picture) and do you know what, I used to be able to eat the entire pack of 8 without feeling sick (or gaining weight) oh how times have changed.  I loved the thick covered Yule log at Christmas with the fake robin stuck in and a liberal dusting of icing sugar – naff but nice, oh happy days.

I find the whole idea of making a Swiss Roll a little intimidating having never made one or seen anyone make one, but Mary is confident, so we will have a go.  Charlie is true to form, and knows the recipe backwards before we begin so we are set to go.

very frothy eggs

Firstly, beat 4 eggs and caster sugar until they are really light and frothy – they double in size and when you pick up the whisk it leaves a trail or trace in the eggs.  You then add the self-raising flour and fold in.  This is transferred into a lined tin and baked for only 10 mins – simple!?  After 10 mins of baking it should be light and golden and you turn it onto a baking paper sprinkled with caster sugar – the sugar sticks to the warm cake and gives the nice finish you get on the cake.   Quickly peel off the paper, let it cool slightly, spread with raspberry jam, score a line 1 inch into the sponge which gives you a starting point to roll up and roll into a lovely Swiss Roll – Simple!  NOT!!!! 

looks Omelette like!

It didn’t actually go quite to plan for us – Charlie did a stirling job whisking the eggs and sugar and we added the flour, but we did not mix it enough – the batter was really loose and had a couple of lumps – we decided it would be okay and carried on.  After 10 mins of baking the smell of the sponge can only be described as fried egg not cakey at all.  It was also very “rubbery” a kind of cake omelette if you will.  When it came to rolling the omelette up, I just went for it and it wasn’t perfect and split in a couple of places, but being our first attempt, we weren’t too disheartened.  Charlie had the honour of the first taste – disgusting! Not only did it smell like omelette, it tasted like a dodgy omelette with the texture of a sponge you clean the loo with – really not good.  

Charlies rubbish rolling!

Right say I, lets do the lemon one – but what did we do wrong with the first one?  The flour wasn’t mixed enough and we rolled it too soon maybe?  So, with the lemon one we mixed the flour in much better and the batter looked like cake batter.  We spread it in the tin, waited 10 mins and turned it onto the paper.  We peeled off the back paper and it looked great – yippee.  We let it cool for longer and spread the lemon curd on it and Charlie rolled it up (after she ridiculed my rolling attempt with the first cake I wanted revenge)  – it looked ….unusual! – Tasted fantastic, but looked rubbish! 

Right Chocolate one next – What did we do wrong last time? – Let it cool too long (and Charlie rolled it).  So we whipped up the eggs and sugar, added the flour and cocoa powder, baked for 10 mins, threw it on the caster sugar sprinkled paper, whipped off the baking paper, covered it with chocolate butter cream and the two of us rolled it up.  Guess what…. Still looked a bit dodgy, a little on the flat side, but we were so proud.  It took 12 eggs, 300g of sugar and 300g of flour a little stress and a lot of team work, but we got somewhere in the end.  It wasn’t perfect, but the Lemon and Chocolate versions, whilst not exactly Swiss (more like flat and Dutch), were very edible.  As for the first one – it found its way into the waste disposal system. 

alittle flat

so proud!

Onwards and upwards – Maple Syrup Cake next week.

Good bye!