Biscoff And Chocolate Jelly Roll, Or Yule Log

Okay first of all, I know its like way passed Christmas, but I warned you, I got all crazy and baked stuff in December, so this is one of those too good to miss things.  It is a cake, but in jelly roll form.  And before you get all "yule log? who wants to eat something that looks like a long?!"  Trust me, you want to, this is good!

My shiny new jelly roll pan, so pretty!

  So the reason I picked a jelly roll to make was two fold.  One I wanted to make something for Christmas eve diner at my parents.  I also wanted to use the jelly roll pan I got a while back. I mean I had a huge gift card for the kitchen store so I got lots of stuff people.  The awesome jelly roll pan being one of them. It even has a snap on dome lid, now idea what I need that for, but I did.

To make the paper stick I just sprayed the edges of the pan then just a line of spray down the middle, then I put the paper on.  It stuck perfectly.

  Anyway, so that is what I did.  I spent about 2 hours, or maybe more, I cannot remember. Looking for a good sponge cake,I wanted chocolate so that was the issue.  Also I didn't want it to be hard to make, because I was in a rush.  So what I found was this.  It was on the Kraft site, I just wanted the cake, so I didn't do the icing.

See how pretty! You still have to help it out and spread it out.

Chocolate Jelly Roll Cake

From Kraft

-3 squares of semi sweet chocolate

-6 TBSP butter

-1 cup sugar

-4 eggs

-1 cup flour, divided

-1/2 TSP baking soda

-2/3 cups water

-jelly roll pan, parchment paper and baking spray

To start you set your oven to 350 and prepare your pan. I used the new Pam baking spray, but you do whatever works, you can just butter and flour it.  Then you lay a sheet of parchment to cover the bottom of your pan.

See I spread it all out, it was not perfect, but these cakes bake so fast you have to spread them out.

To make the batter, melt the chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl until it is melted and smooth.  Add the sugar and mix well.  In the bowl of your mixer beat the eggs for a few minutes until they get thick, mine never really did, but whatever.  Mix in the chocolate mixture and blend well.  Add 1/4 cup flour and the baking soda and mix.  Then alternately add the rest of the flour and water, in a few additions.  Beat well.  

And all done.  Now if you did it the right way this would actually be all rolled up in  a towel.  But I have never done things the right way before, so why would I start now.

 Pour into the prepared pan, and use an off set spatula to spread it evenly, it won't spread out on its own much. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the cake springs back when you press on it lightly.  Remove it from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.  Then take a clean dish towel or parchment paper and flip the cake onto it to finish cooling. ( now the recipe says to sprinkle the cake with icing sugar and flip right out of the oven onto a dish towel, then to roll it up and let it cool. This is the way you should do it really, but we never did that in school, but Hubby pointed out that we used a lot of simple syrup on the rolls at school, making the cake really moist and that stopped it from cracking.  So just be aware, I did it sort of wrong.)

Oh this looks so good, and I really thought I put a thin layer, I ended up with a lot more icing than I needed. 

Then you make your icing.  I had this picture of a nice Biscoff  icing. And I was so excited, but then I made it and it was too sweet.  And I know I just said that, and I know how stupid it sounds.  But it was so sweet I could hardly eat it.  I was so sad.  I did try to put a really thin layer, but you know how it goes.  I think if I did it again I would thin it by folding in some whip cream.  Oh well, just in case here is what I did.

Super Sweet Biscoff Icing

based on me putting stuff in a bowl

-1 cup butter

-1 cup biscoff cookie butter

-1 TSP vanilla bean paste

-milk and icing sugar as needed

Start by creaming the butter and biscoff together, then add milk and sugar until you have as much as you need.  It needs to be thinner as you want to be able to spread it easily.

This looks sort of gross, and wrong.

Okay so once I had it all ready I was going to assemble this sucker.  I left the parchment on the cake as you can use that to roll it.  In theory.  

A little better, you can see the stupid thing cracking on the right.  You can also see the cake carrier my mom gave me, she had it from the 70's.  Can you tell by the colour?

 So I took the icing and spread a nice even layer on the cake, all the way to the edges.  I tried to make it thin, but obviously I didn't.  Whatever.  Now at this point you could add something like sliced berries.  But you all know how I feel about fruit in my deserts, but if you want to, now is the time.

See, a proper jelly roll would have a swirl, mine well, I'm not saying anything.

See I can ice a log looking cake, those are easy.  But smooth cake, no way! Although I know a trick for log cakes involving parchment paper and some crazy moves.  I may share that one day.

  Then starting at one end, the wider end, fold over the cake, peeling back the parchment then with the cake towards you, the parchment paper can be pulled towards you to continue to roll the cake.  Then place that on your serving tray.  As you can see my cake was too long, or my tray too short, either way I just cut the ends off and ate those.  

Now I thought I would pipe a swirl for each serving.  Smart right?  Then I cut a slice and that would have been like three servings, so not so smart, but it looked good.

  Then you are ready to finish your cake.  I just slathered the whole thing with frosting, not worrying about how neat it was, this is supposed to look rustic.  Then just because I pipped some swirls and stuck some candies in that my Aunt got me.  So cute.  Then I took pictures and was all, "look how amazing I am!"  

 Then I put the lid on my cake and smooshed it all.  Then I was all "I am so blaming this on Hubby!"  And I did, and that made me feel a little better, just a little.

My blob of cake, but it was yummy, I promise!

  So then I kept it in the fridge until the next day and we had it for diner.  The cake looked good, only way you could tell I screwed up was by looking at the slice, you can see how the cake cracked, and it was not perfect. I love how nice these are to slice. But it was way too sweet, at least the icing was.  Anyway, it was good, smooshed and all, and I will try again, but I will so do the towel roll thing.  

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