Categories: BakingBaking 101Cakes

Patterned Cake Roll Video Tutorial

I am not big on Valentine’s Day. I mean do we really need a day to tell someone we love them, or to celebrate love for that matter. Love should be celebrated everyday, and we should tell the people we love how much they mean to us, irrespective of the date on the calendar. It needn’t be verbal and it needn’t be over top. Just paying attention to them when they talk. Being interested in how their day has been. Putting away the phone, or switching off the laptop/TV to just talk to them. Making them laugh, or sharing a laugh with them. Doing little things that you know the other person will like. It’s really not that difficult to celebrate love every day.

But that said, even though I try not to fall into the whole Love is in the Air trap, its difficult not to get engulfed in all the reds and pinks that the blogosphere and social media is full of these days. And having said what I said above, it really IS nice to have a day where someone makes a little effort in making you feel special.

And this cake is definitely a great way to celebrate your someone special this Valentine’s Day. And hopefully this video tutorial will help you to achieve just that.

Deco roll video tutorial from Shumaila Chauhan on Vimeo.

I thought I would make the video in Final Cut Pro (which I used to make the focaccia video) and downloaded the trial version, which after I installed, I realized requires the new OS 10.9 Maverick. And the technically challenged person that I am, I upgraded my OS not realizing that my 2GB RAM mid 2010 macbook pro will not be able to take the load of the new OS. Furthermore, the Final Cut Pro software requires minimum 4GB RAM to run (6 GB recommended), which again smart old me did not read in the tech specs. Seriously, with all the technological advances going around these days, should they not come up with an error pop up when dumb people like me try to install such software saying that “Sorry you can’t download- your system is not suitable for this software”. It would save people like me so much trouble. A whole day spent upgrading, installing only to delete final cut pro and get stuck with an upgrade my old little laptop is not equipped for. A whole freaking day doing so much but at the end nothing to show. A big #facepalm moment!

And don’t get me started on the actual video. Although I had made deco rolls a few times before I made the video, for this particular video I used a new template I had created. I wanted the cake to be in step with the theme of this month- Valentine’s Day. And thought having the word love in the cake would be a great idea. Of course I did not realize that I should have taken a mirror image of the template so that when I roll the cake the word “LOVE” comes out in the right direction. And the slow-in-the-head-me did not realize till the whole cake was baked that I had the whole thing wrong! And I had already spent the better part of the day shooting the video. #facepalm

Plus, I found the pattern as is lacked something, and modified it to make the chocolate deco roll shown in the first picture. I have provided the modified template in the link below the recipe. (I will be sharing the recipe for the chocolate deco roll in the coming week as well)

In the video there is part where after I roll the cake, I realize my mistake and you can see me staring. (After staring at the rolled cake for a minute, I went and banged my head against the refrigerator murmuring how can I be so stupid on repeat mode.) Seriously February till now has not been a fun month.

To be very honest I absolutely hate the video. I had envisioned something else and this is not how I wanted the video to be. I hated working on it. So editing took way longer than it should have, because each time I started working, after a while I needed a change to get over how bad it is. My slow laptop did not help either. I contemplated shooting again but then I had no guarantee the new one I would shoot would be good. Plus, its just takes so much time. And, I had already in the last two weeks made five of these deco rolls and had enough of them. So, I decided to just go ahead with what I have. It hopefully gives a fair idea of what is to be done. And I have summarised other key points in this post, so you should be good. I wish I had taken step by step pictures so I could have done without the video, but I did not. Anyway enough of excuses, basically I screwed up completely on this one. But, I am still posting it because I do want you guys to try this out. Plus I wasted too much time on this to not have it as a post. Its a fairly easy technique with such beautiful results.

So excuse me for the video, but nonetheless do try this cake out. After eating five of these the past one and a half weeks, I guarantee you wont be disappointed.’

Things to keep in mind:

When you take the print out of the LOVE and HEARTS Template ( I have provided the link below), make sure you check the mirror image option in your printer settings. For my printer, in printer settings I go to Layout and check the “Flip Horizontally” option.
After piping the pattern, make sure you freeze the cookie sheet for at least ten minutes. This ensures that when you pour the batter the pattern stays in tact.
Do not over bake the cake. If you over bake, when you will try to roll the cake out, it will tear. My oven takes ten minutes, and I remove it immediately after 10 minutes. Each oven is different so please keep an eye on your cake. It might be done quicker.
EDITTED to add: I went to one of my friends place to teach her how to make the deco roll. I found out her oven bakes things faster than mine. The fact that she used a darker pan to bake the roll in might be one reason, or like I said each oven is different so that could possibly be another reason. But whatever the reason, it took 8 min in a 350F hot oven for her roll to bake completely. SO PLEASE KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR CAKE!
Before overturning the baked roll on parchment paper, sprinkle it with powdered sugar. This is a sticky cake, and if you don’t sprinkle the parchment paper with confectioners sugar it be difficult to remove the parchment paper later.
Make sure you roll the cake as soon as it is out of the oven. And let it cool completely before you unroll and fill it.
When you roll the cake, start rolling from the opposite side of your pattern, so that the pattern remains on top.
For the polka dot deco roll, I used four different colors- green, red, pink and a paler pink. If its your first time trying the polka dot template is a fairly simple to use. Its just piping out dots.
For the hearts and love deco roll, I used a wilton tip 1 to pipe the letters and shape the hearts.
For the motif type design deco roll, I just free hand drew the design on parchment paper and thus have no template yet.

Looking for more inspiration check this out:

http://sugarforthebrain.com/2012/07/30/decorated-cake-roll-tutorial/

And if you are to busy to make this check out Shari’s berries chocolate dipped strawberries and their cheesecake trio!

Updated to add:

I generally do give credit and I thought I had given credit but apparently as someone pointed out I did not. I am not sure where I saw the original recipe because its all over the internet on several sites but as far as I remember the first time I saw this was on this site http://www.larecetadelafelicidad.com/2011/07/decorar-bizcochos.html and the cake recipe is from cakecentral.com as far as I remember.

Deco Rolls

Prep time: 1 hour

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 1 hour 10 mins

Serves: 8-10

Ingredients

For the pattern:
1 egg white
30 gm granulated sugar
40 gms all purpose flour
20 grams butter, softened
Color, as desired ( I used deep pink, and red)
For the cake:
4 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp water
For the filling
1 cup whipping cream
1 tbsp powdered sugar
10 strawberries

Instructions

Grease a half sheet pan. Line it with parchment paper. Put your template under the parchment paper on one side of the pan.

For the pattern:

In a bowl beat the egg white with a fork. Add in sugar. And then the flour. Mix well. Beat in the butter to make a smooth paste. Divide batter if necessary and color as desired. Put in piping bags and using the template as a guideline, pipe the pattern. Put in the freezer for at least 15 minutes, and make the cake batter.

For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 375 F.
In a stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the 4 eggs for 5 minutes. Gradually add in the granulated sugar and beat for an additional 5 minutes, till the mixture is pale. Mix in the vanilla.
Sift the flour with the baking powder in a separate bowl. Fold in the flour till well combined. But do not overbeat. Add the water.
Take the sheet pan with the piped pattern out of the freezer. Remove template from under the parchment paper.
Pour the batter over the pattern. Clean the edges to get a cleaner roll. Let bake for 10 minutes. The cake is done when you lightly touch the surface with the tip of your finger and the cake springs back. Please see notes above for baking times- my friend's oven bakes the cake in 8 min in a 350F hot oven. So keep an eye on that cake.
While the cake is baking, sprinkle powdered sugar on a piece of parchment paper. Once the cake is baked, remove it and flip it on the prepared parchment paper. The best way to flip I have found is to put the sugar sprinkled parchment paper on the back side of another sheet pan. And then put it on the baked cake. As shown in the video.
Once flipped over, pull the parchment paper out from the decorated side. Flip it over again. And roll it, starting from the side opposite from the pattern.
Let sit on counter, rolled till its completely cool.
While the roll is cooling, make the filling by whipping the cream with the sugar till just about stiff peaks are formed. Chop the strawberries into small pieces.
Unroll the patterned cake roll, and spread the whipped cream on top. Add the chopped strawberries on top. And roll the cake tightly to form a log again.
Serve at room temperature.