Vanilla Swiss Roll 瑞士蛋糕卷

Swiss roll, also name as jelly roll or cream roll, is actually rolled up sponge cake filled with cream or filling. Like chiffon and the traditional buttercream birthday cakes I grew up with, it is a dessert I never got tired of eating. And now being a vegetarian, I still develop cravings for it every now and then. My way of suppressing these cravings are by directly confronting these cravings by baking and feasting the output by sight through spending time on the photographing part. By the time I am done with the photo selection, editing and blogging, any desire or cravings for the said food would have been reduced to a distant memory until the next surface.

Whenever my husband mentioned his cravings for swiss roll, I would shrink back away and pretend unaware of his request. That I believe many of you out there who started baking might have the same phobia like me.... the fear of cracking the layer while rolling the cake, right?

This is my fourth attempt on making rolled cakes and this recipe from kitchen tigress produces the easiest cake layer for rolling, without having to risk scalded hands by rolling the cake immediately when its out of the oven.  Her recipes are all so easy and hands on with minimum usage of tools, lesser stuff to wash up which pleases me immensely. The cake turned out soft but manageable enough for rolling even after the cake has cooled.  

I am using the cream cheese fillings leftover from the making of Snow Cheesecake for this layer cake. Feel free to apply any fillings of your choice of flavors. Happy baking!

VANILLA SWISS ROLL (瑞士蛋糕卷) 

(Recipe Adapted from Kitchen Tigress and Bernice Kitchen for one 11" roll)

Ingredients

4 Egg Whites  (Grade A Eggs with min 60g nett weight)

55g Castor Sugar

4 Egg Yolks (Grade A Eggs with min 60g nett weight)

55 g cake flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g Salted Butter (melted and cooled)

Filling 

50g Cream Cheese (softened to room temp)

10g Sweetened Condensed Milk

20g Whipping Cream 

Some Strawberries

• Cream the cream cheese with condensed milk until light and fluffy. Add in whipping cream and continue beating till well combined.  

Decoration

Icing Sugar (Optional)

Method

Grease and line a 11"x11"x2" pan with parchment paper and butter. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200C degrees.

In a clean, dry and spotless mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites with an electrical mixer at medium low speed for 1 minute, or until frothy. Gradually add in sugar and continue whisking at medium high speed until the egg whites reaches soft peak stage. Continue whisking the mixture until firm peak stage (the stage where egg whites are white, fluffy, firm and still glossy with a hooked peak). 

Add egg yolks to the egg whites mixture in 4 separate batches. Using a hand whisk, gently whisk in the egg yolks in 4 batches until evenly mixed. 

Sift in cake flour into the above batter. Mixing in the flour with a hand whisk till just even. Add vanilla extract and melted butter. Gently and swiftly fold the batter with spatula till just evenly mixed, knocking the mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times to release bigger air bubbles.

Transfer batter into prepared cake pan and spread the batter as evenly as possible. Jiggle the pan to level the batter. Knock the baking pan against the kitchen top twice. 

Bake at middle shelf of the oven at 200C degrees for 10-11 minutes. Remove from oven and drop the  pan from a height of 1 feet from the kitchen counter top several times. Unmould the cake onto the wire rack. Peel parchment paper from sides of the cake. Leave to cool. 

Place cake on new sheet of parchment paper, face down. Remove parchment paper from bottom cake. Spread evenly with the suggested cream cheese filling and arrange some cut strawberries on top. 

Using the parchment paper as a guide, gently and firmly roll up the layer to form a rolled cake. Wrap the rolled cake in parchment paper with seams side down. Store in fridge for 2-3 hours before serving.

Dust with icing sugar (optional) and cut into slices to serve.