Strawberries & Cream Log Cake

I love love love baking dates 🙂 After thinking and thinking about what to bake next, my friend Angela and I settled on a Strawberry & Cream Sponge Cake Roll. It was the perfect size and I love how light this sponge cake tastes and I always hands-down prefer whipped cream vs. buttercream! And fresh strawberries? Heaven!

It was not at all a quiet baking session today since we had the pleasure of little Maddy’s “singing”. She’s reaching the toddler stage and just so energetic!! Crawling and trial walking all over the kitchen, she was our entertainer today 🙂

So, as I was saying, we wanted to do something new and different but still keeping it simple. I swear next time will be tiramisu since that was on our list but due to time constraints, we thought it best to go with something where we have the ingredients already readily available.

Strawberry Log Cake: (source from www.grouprecipes.com)
Recipe makes one log

Ingredients:

Cake:

– 4 large egg yolks
– 2 large eggs
– 1/2 cup granulated sugar
– 1 cup sifted cake flour
– 1 teaspoon baking powder
– 1 teaspoon salt
– 1 1/2 tablespoons warm water
– 1 teaspoon vanilla
– powdered icing sugar (to sprinkle on top of finished log)

Strawberry Filling:
– 1 cup whipping cream
– 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
– 3 tablespoons lemon curd (recipe here!), at room temperature
– 1 pint basket (about 3 1/4 cups) strawberries, stemmed and coarsely chopped

Directions:

Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 18- x 12-inch jellyroll – sheet pan with aluminum foil; coat with oil or vegetable spray.
2. In large mixer bowl beat yolks and eggs at high speed about 5 minutes until thick and lemon-colored. Continuing at high speed, gradually beat in granulated sugar until mixture is pale and thick.
3. Gently fold in dry ingredients (i.e. flour, baking powder and salt) except powdered sugar to blend thoroughly.
4. Then fold in water, oil and vanilla.
5. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake in center of oven about 10 minutes until springy to the touch.
6. Meanwhile, coat a clean dishtowel with powdered sugar. Invert hot cake onto towel close to one long edge. Gently peel off foil. Trim 1/2 inch off each short side of cake. Note: We totally missed this step!! Definitely a must for next time
7. Starting from long side, tightly roll cake and towel. Set on rack to cool completely. Note: We laid cling wrap underneath the cake so that we could roll it like sushi 🙂

Strawberry Filling Directions:
1. In mixer bowl whip cream to form soft peaks.
2. Beat in sugar to form stiff peaks.
3. Then fold in lemon curd to blend thoroughly.
4. Mix in chopped strawberries.

Assembly:
1. Gently unroll cake. Spread strawberry mixture evenly on cake and re-roll.
2. Place seam-side-down.
3. Dust with powdered sugar.
4. Cut into 8 (about 1 3/4-inch) equal slices. Place each slice on serving plate. Garnish with whole and halved strawberries (optional).

Side Notes:
The original recipe called for 10 minutes of baking time, but since we are both (sadly) not blessed with mathematic genes, we failed to make adjustments that was probably required since we used a cookie sheet for the pan. Hence, the cake batter was spread out thinner and it was a bit denser than what we would’ve liked, but next time’s the charm perhaps! So next time? Bake shorter! Maybe 6-7 minutes and keep monitoring?

Also, the filling asked for lemon curd to be mixed into the whipping cream. Again, I halved the recipe and it seemed I put in too much liquid. Result? Lemon curd that was slightly more on the runny side. The recipe we used is here and I’m sure it was well intended to work out as a legit creamy curd 🙂

Verdict: It really wasn’t as hard as we initially thought! I admit, we were slightly intimated when it came down to the rolling part but we made it! Few cracks here and that’s why there’s powdered icing on top- masks it all! This is perfect for breakfast (there’s protein from eggs, calcium from cream and come on, a good serving of fruits!), lunch, dinner or dessert 🙂 Definitely one recipe I’ll be keeping to try to perfect! It sure was a lot of fun making it though!

Misson: Flaky Pie Crust

Pie is not one of my favorite desserts out there but I have to say that a flaky pie crust with gooey apple filling + a scoop of Hagen Daz vanilla ice-cream is simply irresistible 😉

I have to say this crust is super simple to make with an electronic mixer and it came out supppperrrr flaky!! Definitely a keeper!

Flaky Pie Crust (Source from AllRecipes.com)
Recipe makes 1 pie crust or 10 – 12 mini pies (muffin tin size) with top crust

Ingredients:
– 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
– ¼ teaspoon salt
– ½ cup shortening, chilled
– 3 tablespoons ice water

Directions:
– Whisk the flour and salt together in a medium size bowl. With a  pastry blender, cut in the cold shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs (OR you can add shortening to the flour mixture in a stand mixer and whip with the paddle attachment). Drizzle 2-3 tablespoons ice water over the mixture. Toss mixture with a fork to moisten, adding more water a few drops at a time until the dough comes together.
– Gently gather dough particles together into a ball. Wrap in a plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling.
– Roll out dough and put in pie plate/ muffin tin.

Since I returned from a trip to Okanagan recently, I had a few too many peaches and decided to do half peach and half apple pies for our BBQ dessert:

Mini Apple/ Peach Pies (Adapted from DelishMegish.com)
Recipe makes 10 – 12 mini pies

Apple Filing:
– 1 Golden Delicious or Granny Smith apple
– ¼ cup brown sugar
– 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
– Pinch of salt (less than ¼ teaspoon)

Peach Filling:
– 1 large peach
– 3 tablespoons brown sugar
– 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Roll out pie crust to about ¼ inch thick. Cut out circles large enough to fill the muffin tin. You can always trim excess on the side.
3. Prepare egg wash: Beat one egg in a small bowl. Add 1 teaspoon water and mix.
4. Create apple and peach filling.
5. Assembly: Put round crust to fill each muffin tin and trim excess. Spoon in filling and top off with couple spoons of the sweet marinade. Using the leftover pie crust, cut out long thin strips to form the top crust. Using the egg wash, brush over top crust and dust with extra brown sugar.
6. Bake in oven until light golden brown, about 20 – 25 minutes.

Note: EAT IMMEDIATELY AND SERVE HOT 🙂