This raspberry jelly roll cake was our Burns Night dessert this year. I guess Tipsy Laird trifle was the inspiration for the raspberry jam-filled sponge cake roll. (Taste-wise and texture-wise is a little more similar to a Chinese Swiss Roll Cake — super-light and airy.)
It was important to control the sugar content in the jam, so I made my own. It’s easy to make homemade jam by letting sugar and raspberries simmer on the stove for 30 minutes. The jam was nice and tart; not too sweet.
I don’t think I’d reduce the sugar in the cake any further. The sugar is an important part of the structure of the sponge cake — kinda like hairspray. The cake is “light and airy” because I forced air into eggs, and the sugar is what’s preventing those air-filled egg-bubbles from collapsing. If you cut the sugar too much, the cake is likely to get rubbery and omelet-like.
Raspberry Jelly Roll
Equipment
- 1 electric beater
- 1 lint-free dish towel
- 1 jelly roll pan or a 9×13-inch baking dish
Ingredients
Sponge Cake:
- 3 eggs
- ¾ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Raspberry Jam Filling
- 2 cups frozen or fresh raspberries
- ¼ cups sugar
- ¼ cups water
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Topping
- ¼ cup whipped dessert topping
- ½ cup raspberries
- powdered sugar
Instructions
- Cover a lint-free dish towel with powdered sugar and shake off the excess sugar. This is what we'll use to shape and roll the cake. The powdered sugar prevents the cake sticking to the towel.
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Line a jelly roll pan or a 13×19-inch baking dish with parchment paper. Give the parchment a light spritz of nonstick spray.
- Beat the eggs with an electric beater until the eggs are foamy and pale yellow.
- Gradually beat in the sugar
- Beat in ⅓ cup of water and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt
- Gradually beat the flour mixture into the cake batter until fully incorporated – be gentle; we want to avoid deflating the whipped-up eggs!
- Pour the cake batter into the prepared baking dish or jelly roll pan.
- Bake at 350 °F for about 15 minutes. The cake might not be very brown on top, but a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake should come out clean.
Shape the cake:
- As soon as the cake is cool enough to touch, pick up the edges of the parchment paper and pull the cake out of the pan. Gently the cake face-down on the sugar-covered dish towel.
- Gently peel the parchment paper off the cake.
- While the cake is still warm, roll the dish towel up tightly with the cake inside. This will prevent cracking and tearing when you roll the cake later.
- Gently unroll the dish towel and the cake, and allow the cake to sit and cool for at least 30 minutes.
- Make the raspberry jam:
- The jam can be made up to 3 days ahead of time and stored in an airtight container in the fridge. Or, you can make the jam while you're waiting for the cake to cool.
- Combine the raspberries, sugar and water in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Cover the saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes with the lid on.
- Remove the lid and simmer for another 15 minutes, until most of the liquid evaporates and the raspberries reach a jam-like consistency.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract
Assemble the jelly roll:
- Spread the raspberry jam evenly over the top of the sponge cake.
- Roll up the sponge cake.
- Wrap the dish towel tightly around the outside of the cake roll. The towel will hold the cake securely in a rolled-up shape. Leave the cake tightly rolled inside the dish towel until serving time.
- Just before serving, top with whipped cream (or I used Cool Whip), raspberries and more powdered sugar.
