This is a post that really should have gone up in December during the holidays, but TOO BAD – you will be getting it now!

As usual, for the holidays I was in charge of providing dessert for the family, and this year I scored with Joy the Baker’s Chocolate Peppermint Roll with Chocolate Ganache.

Deliciousness in a Roll

I’d actually made a chocolate roll with filling a few weeks earlier for a baking competition at work; the recipe itself was from Deb of Smitten Kitchen (how could I lose, right?).  But even though the cake won me 3rd place (thank you, thank you!) I was pretty unhappy with the way it turned out.  Unlike the rolled Pumpkin Log I made earlier in the year, SK’s chocolate cake roll depended heavily on whipped egg whites folded into a chocolate batter, making it very delicate.  While the cake ended up tasting delicious, the cake-part itself – as opposed to the filling – was so fragile that the rolling and unrolling I did to it made it crack and almost completely far apart instead of turning into a nice clean rolled shape.  I thought this was odd considering Deb had gone out of her way to include an explanation on how to roll the cake in a tea towel to avoid the cracking.  Clearly I executed it incorrectly.  It was frustrating.

You can see how this first version of the cake is pretty cracked after unrolling it to add the filling.

As it turns out, Joy’s recipe wasn’t so much different from Deb’s, but the technique she used for rolling was.  Just like with the Pumpkin Log, the SK recipe required you to roll the cake in a tea towel to let it “set” while warm.  Once cooled, you unrolled it, added your filling, and rolled it back up a second time.  Joy doesn’t do that.  Because the cake is so much more delicate than the sturdy pumpkin one, she allows the cake to cool in the pan, meaning once it’s cooled you add the filling and roll only once.  I still didn’t get it done perfectly – I’m pretty sure I let it cool too long – but it turned out much better than my attempt with the double-rolling technique.  Plus, all the small bits of ugliness were hidden by the ganache.  Hey, presto!

Ganache covers all sins!

Learning how to make a cake roll like this was pretty interesting despite its frustrations.  I’m not sure it’s a recipe I’d make often – since I’m a bit of a lazy baker I’m not a fan of recipes that require me to carefully fold together 2 sets of ingredients as opposed to just mixing and moving on – but I’d definitely make it for special occasions.  You can add basically any flavor you want to the filling, making this a pretty versatile dessert.

Folding is my least favorite thing.

The good news was that both incarnations of this roll are HELLA delicious and look super-fancy.  If you have any tips on rolling delicate cakes like this, please let me know!  I’d love to learn more.

Enjoy some roll-age!

Chocolate Peppermint Roll with Ganache

From Joy the Baker!

Mary Gezo

Formerly of both n00bcakes and !Blog, the two magically become one on Spatialdrift; expect some lazy baking and serious nerditude. Also, I love semicolons.