Jan 14, 2022, Updated Jul 19, 2024 I adore an airy, cream-stuffed sponge cake like this Chocolate Swiss Roll. While the separating and whipping of the egg whites and yolks is a bit more finicky than some cakes, it is totally worth the payoff. The cloud-like chocolate sponge cake stands up to slicing through a pillowy chocolate cream filling and the contrast between rich cream and feather-light cake is just so good.
Ingredient Details to Note:
There’s no oil or butter in the cake. Eggs: be sure to warm them from the fridge for best whipping. Here’s my pro method for bringing ingredients to room temperature super quickly. Granulated sugar: note we are dividing the measurements between the whites and the yolks. Sugar dissolves and stabilizes egg foams. Cocoa powder: for rich, dark chocolatey flavour. (Either Dutch-processed or not is fine for this recipe)
The filling is a simple, 4-ingredient whipped cream:
Whipping cream: it should be cold from the fridge for optimal whipping (opposite to eggs). Confectioners’ sugar: which dissolves more readily in the cream, and also has a bit of cornstarch which helps to stabilize the whipped cream.
How to Make A Chocolate Swiss Roll Cake
Whip the egg whites and yolks separately:
Listen, I get it. That sounds like a lot of effort, and egg white whipping is somewhat intimidating to a person who doesn’t make meringue on the reg. But in this cake recipe, I tested with over-beaten whites, under-beaten whites, and perfectly-beaten whites and guess what? No difference in the final cake. So don’t sweat it. Aim for whipping them to medium-firm peaks (when you lift the whisk, the meringue will hold a peak but the very tip will droop a bit), scrape the beaten whites into a separate bowl and move on to beating the yolks without even wiping out the mixer bowl.
I’m not in the business of complicating things.
We’re gonna beat the yolks with some sugar (in lieu of creaming butter with sugar! See? It’s not more work, just different work) and then add the dry ingredients and a splash of milk.
The Simple, Foolproof Way to Roll Up a Swiss Roll Cake
The most intimidating part of the Swiss roll cake is rolling it up. You first roll it up while still hot, in order to allow the cake to set and cool in the correct shape for rolling again later without breaking.
Traditionally, this required flipping the hot cake to a sugar-dusted tea towel (not a super-easy task). I asked myself, why the messy tea towel when parchment is non stick? And sure enough, placing parchment on top of the cake, topped with a cooling rack, and flipping everything over together effectively transferred the cake, and the parchment was perfect for the rolling part.
Then I asked myself — wait. If it’s already baked on parchment (oiled parchment, in fact, which removes very easily), WHY transfer it at all? And so I rolled my next cake up right on the hot pan in the parchment it was baked on.
In doing so, I eliminated the most finicky, challenging-for-even-experienced-bakers job of flipping a floppy, thin cake onto a towel, a task that has remained unquestioned since likely the 1800s when this cake was probably invented and baked sans parchment paper. I find it intriguing how we tend to just keep doing things the way they’ve always been done.
Truly, though, the cake contains so much egg that despite being airy, it’s actually quite strong and pliable. Follow these steps with confidence, and if the cake tears a bit, it’s seriously no big deal. Chances are the tear will be concealed in the middle of the cake, and if not, a dusting of confectioner’s sugar will hide all mistakes.
Deliciousness will make any imperfections irrelevant.
