A Different Kind of Spring Roll

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. My name is Kate, and I am insane. For years (I'm not even kidding--at least five years), I have tried to master the art of making a roll cake. I would come up with an awesome idea, pattern, flavor, etc., and without fail, 98% of the time, they would completely fall apart when I tried to roll them up in a towel or unroll to frost them no matter how many different approaches, tips, and techniques I tried. The other 2%? Cake roll turns out visually PERFECT but tasted like I'd imagine a running shoe would taste like: all rubbery and absolutely disgusting. But since I refuse to be bested by a baked good, I tried for the 1,947th time to make a roll cake. I cried actual tears when I finally managed to make a roll cake that, well, rolled, wasn't split into 16 different pieces, and also actually tastes like a cake and not a pair of Nikes.

It's a spring roll...get it?

This cake is positively blooming with lemon flavor. Something about springtime brings up lemon flavor associations in my mind...these thoughts then take a roundabout path that end up with me wanting a giant lemonade from Chick-fil-a only to realize, of course, it's Sunday, the only day of the week you ever want Chick-fil-a because you can't have it. At least I have this lemon cake that is bursting with enough spring-color-palette bliss that it reminds me of Peeps. But unlike those marshmallow? (questionable) creations, this is actually edible. Since it's a cake roll, it is a pretty springy (seriously, no pun intended I SWEAR), light, airy cake filled with lemon flavor, but my absolute favorite part (that I finally get to share with you since this recipe didn't turn into a flaming pile of my broken hopes and dreams) is the filling. It's my new take on cream cheese frosting with a secret ingredient that cuts down on fat and calories in a major way: Greek yogurt. But it doesn't taste like sour cream gone bad (get it together, plain Greek yogurt); it is blended in with ingredients that make this a yummy, creamy filling that also holds stiffly enough that you can pipe decorations with it. Added bonus? Each slice of this heavenly Easter-eqsue lemon cake roll is only 209 calories (8 slices total). You will need to make your frosting ahead of time, so scroll down after the cake recipe to learn why and how.

You'll have 95 cups of buttermilk leftover, though. Grease that waffle iron or pancake griddle...

I don't usually do from scratch recipes because I am lazy and follow the "work smarter not harder" approach to life. But with the increasingly high number of cake fails I've experienced with cake rolls (I still taste shoe rubber when I think of the last one), I decided to find a base recipe and experiment with extracts only. Happy to report the following recipe worked expertly and tastes phenomenal, so, ya know, roll with it:

• 1 cup of flour (I used King Arthur's gluten free flour)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 4 eggs at room temp
• 3/4 cup of Lakanto granular monkfruit sweetener or regular sugar
• 2 TBS vegetable oil
• 2 TBS buttermilk
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• Gel dyes: I used Americolor electric green, teal, electric blue, electric purple, and electric pink. All together, a shockingly good spring/Easter color palette.
  

Egg-scuse me, that was a terrible pun. So was that, but I apologize for nothing. You want the recipe? You gotta deal with my bad dad jokes. Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare a 10x15 jelly roll pan with Parchment paper sprayed with cooking spray. 

In a bowl, mix the flour and baking powder together; set aside. In a stand mixer with paddle attachment, whip the eggs on medium-high for 4 minutes until fluffy and pale yellow. Turn the mixer speed to low, add the sugar slowly, and let it fully incorporate. Add in the oil, buttermilk, vinegar, and extracts, followed finally by the dry flour mix a little at a time. You don't want to over mix since you need to color the batter later, so just mix on low until everything comes together. 

Divide batter into 5 small bowls (I used 1/2 cup of batter in each bowl). Dye each your springtime colors of choice (if it isn't neon, really pink, or annoyingly yellow, is it actually a spring cake?). Much like my rainbow bundt cake, you'll use every bowl and spoon in your kitchen, so thank God for dishwashers.

I know it might sound odd, but neon pink is such an obnoxious color that I absolutely love it.

Now, once you've dyed all your batter, add each color to its own piping bag or a plastic bag.

And prepare to turn everything in your kitchen into a neon disaster of Meow Wolf proportions.

You might want to put some paper towels down so you don't dye your kitchen counters to match those Easter eggs you were working on with your kids (I assume this is still a thing people do, ponders Lady No-Kids). Grab that prepared pan, and snip the tips off the piping or plastic bags. I alternated diagonal stripes of lime, teal, blue, purple, pink:

While giddily giggling at how blindingly bright this cake was going to be. I really wanted it to scream SPRING IS HERE, and I think you could probably see these colors from space, so, mission achieved.

I used an angled spatula to gently smooth each color after I piped it so that there were no gaps between colors and the batter was spread evenly for baking. Be sure to wipe the spatula clean between each color.

I get a strange yearning to find all my old Lisa Frank memorabilia looking at this.

Next time, I would make my stripes thinner so more of them show once the cake is rolled up. Alternatively, you could do horizontal stripes as well. Once you've filled the pan, gently tap it on the counter a few times to release air bubbles. Bake at 350 for exactly 12 minutes. I added an extra minute because it still felt a little too spongy, and I had cracking issues in some places. I definitely attribute this to the bake time because the thinner areas where I didn't do as good of a job evenly distributing batter were the areas that cracked. So be careful to really evenly spread the batter and not to over bake by even 1 minute...this is the Mariah Carey of cakes--total diva. Had I pulled the roll out at 12 minutes, it definitely would've been spongy enough to be malleable all over for rolling.

Seriously, this is so neon it hurts to look at for more than 10 seconds at a time. *It's perfect.*

Rewind a bit, and while your cake is still baking in the oven, throw down a tea towel and dust the ever-loving-heck out of it with powdered sugar on both sides. This will keep the cake from sticking to the towel. There will be powdered sugar covering everything in your kitchen no matter how many paper towels or how much wax paper you put down, so prepare for it to look like a drug deal went very wrong. White powder EVERYWHERE. Now, the SECOND that cake comes out of the oven after 12, not 13 minutes, put the tea towel on top of it, then put a cooling rack on top of that, face down. With the aid of some pot holders, flip all this over together. 

It's like a very hot, potentially burn-y circus act to get this out of the pan.

Remove the pan, which is now on top of everything, very carefully so you don't burn yourself, or worse, hurt the cake. It may be a very demanding cake, but it is otherwise perfectly innocent. Carefully, slowly, gingerly, incredibly nimbly, roll the cake up in the towel starting from the short side (left to right, not top to bottom, based on the position of my cake above).

Don't forget to breathe in there somewhere, too.

Congratulations, you've made it 75% of the way. I assume performing surgery is easier than making a cake roll, but I might be off base. Let the cake cool completely to the touch while in the towel on top of cooling rack. Don't move it to the fridge or freezer; you don't want it to dry out at all. If you blast it with cold air, it will, and then when you try to unroll it, it will crumble. Trust me, I've done this about 2,700 times, and every time I put my roll in the fridge to chill, it absolutely crumbled apart.

Yes, you need specialty spring sprinkles. It's simply a required aesthetic aspect to compliment how unbeliveably neon this cake is.

Guys, put your feelings about Greek yogurt aside. I absolutely refuse to eat plain Greek yogurt, but the flavored stuff is aces. I prefer Two Good or Dannon Light+Fit flavors, but your favorite brand will work. You want to get started on this the day before you bake because you need to strain your yogurt overnight. To make:

• 8 ounces/226 grams strained vanilla or lemon Greek yogurt (I used vanilla)
• 8 ounces of 1/3 less fat cream cheese at room temp
• 2 TBS powdered monkfruit or powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• Optional: 1 tsp lemon extract (I didn't, but really wish I had added this because I love lemon flavor)
• Not even remotely optional: these adorable Easter sprinkles 

 

Yogurt Straining 101

Yogurt straining is super simple, it just takes awhile. In order to make a pipe-able, stiff frosting, you'll need to do this. Put a sieve over a bowl, and put either cheesecloth, a coffee filter, or a thin layer of really durable paper towels (I used two sheets of Viva folded in half) in the sieve. Then plop your yogurt in this, cover with plastic wrap, and let drain overnight in the fridge.

The next day, beat the softened cream cheese in a stand mixer until light and fluffy, around 3 minutes. Add the yogurt, blending on medium high until everything comes together. Add the powdered monkfruit and the extracts, and finish mixing. Now, pray to whatever deity you believe in because it's time to unroll your cake.

Once the cake is cool to the touch, very slowly unroll it from the kitchen towel. Use 2/3 of the frosting to slather on the top of the cake. Once you have a nice thick layer of frosting, this helps to hold things together in the event of any cracking (There will be cracking. There will always be cracking). Slowly roll the cake back up, using the towel to help guide you along the way. I would roll a small section, carefully ply the towel away from the cake, roll again, and repeat until my cake was in a solid roll with minimal cracks (i.e., it was in 1 piece and not 7).

An Easter miracle! Wait...

Hindsight here is my only cake roll plate is fall-themed. Fall is the best season, so it stands to reason I'll have to use this recipe again in a few months. Until then, let's think of this as a "Gathering of the Seasons."

Fall leaves and neon spring hues definitely do not go together.

Now that you've survived the hardest part of making a cake roll, have some fun and decorate that electric beauty. I used a 2D tip and the rest of my frosting to pipe large mounds down the middle of the cake, then came back in to pipe small flowers beside each mound. Naturally, I finished with sprinkles, as is always the case.

Because they're freakin' delightful, people.

Cake plate aside, I am so happy with how this looks.

The inside is absolutely adorable to boot.

Few times in my life have I felt more relief than when a cake roll finally turned out right after a million failed attempts. It was a large baking victory, and I stand by it!

You can definitely trim the ends to give it a cleaner look for presentation, but after the anxiety and breath holding, you'll probably be ready to take a nap or drink a stiff beverage once you're done piping and sprinkling. Plus, trimmed ends = wasted cake, and we just can't have that. I wish I had used a bit more filling so the color layers were separated better, but there's always next time. I assume my next cake roll will end up being an utter nightmare, so I'm just basking in the glow of this cake...which is completely possible thanks to those electric neon hues it's giving off. I am eagerly awaiting my next slice. 

These are also the best tasting sprinkles I have ever had, and that's saying something because I have an entire pantry shelf devoted to sprinkles.

After a few heavier cake bakes, this roll and the lemon flavor are so refreshing. It's nice to eat a slice of cake and feel somehow lighter? But that could also just be the years of cake roll fails falling off my soul. Either way, this recipe is delicious, and that yogurt cream cheese frosting is an absolute game changer. Whatever cake flavor- strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, caramel, blueberry, you get the point, there's a Greek yogurt in the same flavor that you can make your cream cheese frosting with. I'm already plotting out how to use it in my next bake. Until then, this colorful springtime beauty is all I need. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter next Sunday! If you bring this cake roll to your family gathering, you will make the Easter Bunny look like an absolute chump. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

That's all, yolks!