Vanilla Chiffon Roll

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is the Vanilla Chiffon Roll, which is a jelly roll-style cake with a chocolate mousse filling. I was really excited to make this cake, because I hadn’t made a jelly roll cake in ages! I think I may have been in high school the last time I made one. This one was a little different since it was a chiffon cake, but I was glad to give it a try. Make sure that you visit the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see how all of the other bakers did with this week’s recipe.

This cake took a little more patience, which is the case whenever you have to whip the egg whites separated and fold them in to the batter. As much as I bake, I don’t ever feel that confident in my folding skills. I did ok here, although there was one place which the egg white wasn’t fully incorporated. I spread the batter in the pan, evenly I thought, but my cake was a little uneven. It seemed to even out as the cake cooled, as my super puffy cake deflated quite as bit as it cooled. You cool this cake flat, which is different than my experience. I was worried it would crack when I rolled it up but the cake was flexible enough that it was fine.

I did a simplified version of the mousse filling. With the cake taking two bowls and the mousse filling requiring two bowls plus a saucepan, I wasn’t thrilled about messing up more dishes. My husband found a recipe that was heavy cream and Nutella that made into a mousse. I had planned to substitute hazelnuts for the walnuts anyway, so that worked great. It was a little less firm perhaps, but was just fine. I liked this cake and was pleased with how it turned out, even though it wasn’t 100% perfect. I will certainly use the Nutella/heavy cream mousse again.

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, pages 277-279

Filling recipe from Michael Symon