Hazelnut cake roll with raspberries

I love cake rolls. They are versatile and you can make them before you leave to work. 🙂 And everybody loves them.

This cake roll is fantastic, fluffy, full of hazelnuts and refreshing thanks to raspberries. Hazelnuts could be substitute with any other nuts you like. This recipe is from The Essential Dessert Cookbook. I just modify it a bit.

It’s easy to prepare. If you have experience with making cake rolls, this recipe will be a piece of a (roll) cake for you. If you are beginner, no worries. You need to bake some rolls, find out how to roll up them and you are “Cake roll pro”. Stay calm, if there is any imperfection. The taste of this dessert will make it up and nobody notice anything.

If you don’t have or don’t like raspberries, you can use any other berries for this cake. Your cake roll will be special and delicious. You can add your favourite liqueur, orange or lemon zest to whipped cream. There are so many options. So, let’s start!

Ingredients (serves 10)

Preparation time: 20 minutes + 15 minutes baking + refrigeration

Cake

• 5 eggs (yolks and whites separately)
• 120 g brown cane sugar + 1 tbsp for sprinkling
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 40 g whole-wheat flour (sifted)
• 1/3 tsp baking powder
• 100 g hazelnuts (dry roasted and finely grounded)
• 1 tbsp icing sugar

Filling

• 180 ml whipping cream (30% of fat)
• 1 tbsp brown cane sugar
• 200 g raspberries (fresh or frozen)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For decoration

• raspberries, icing sugar, or anything you like

Instructions

Line the baking pan (35 x 42 cm) with baking paper and sprinkle with 1 tbsp of cane sugar. You can grease the baking pan first, so the baking paper will not move. Preheat oven to 180 °C.

Using the whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks with sugar until the mixture is thick and sugar is dissolved. Add vanilla extract and mix well. In other bowl whisk egg whites until soft peaks are formed. Slowly and carefully, little by little, add whisked egg whites into egg yolks mixture.

Combine flour with baking powder and gently fold one third of flour at a time in egg mixture. Fold in finely grounded hazelnuts.

Pour the mixture into the prepared baking pan, gently smooth the top and bake for 15 minutes. The cake should be baked and elastic after 15 minutes. It shouldn’t be dried.

Prepare clean kitchen towel and put new baking paper on it. Dust the baking paper with icing sugar. I’ve tried to use granulated sugar, but icing sugar works better for me. It prevents the cake from sticking to the baking paper.

Once the cake is baked, the exciting part comes – turn out – peel off – roll up. You have to work fast, but no worries. While still hot, turn out the cake onto prepared baking paper with icing sugar, peel off the baking paper (the one which is on the of the cake), and using the kitchen towel, roll up the cake lenghtways. Leave to cool at a room temperature and in the meantime, prepare the cream filling.

Using whisk attachment, whip cream until half-soft. Add sugar and whisk until whipped cream is formed (don’t do butter). Add vanilla extract or other preferred liqueur and mix. If you use fresh raspberries, you can mash them a bit. The juice from raspberries colors the whipped cream. Add raspberries into whipped-cream and gently fold.

Unroll the cooled cake. If it is tearing apart, don’t panic, the cream filling works as a glue when cooled. Spread the cream filling over the cake leaving 2 cm border from the farther edge. The cream gets there while rolling up. Re-roll the cake roll, using the kitchen towel and peel off the baking paper. Let the cake roll refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Serve cold sprinkled with icing sugar and fresh berries.