I'm Learning to Fry!

This is of my own creation and I have nothing better to call it than “Chocolate Sponge Roll”. Think of a jelly roll with sponge cake, but instead of putting jelly or fruit inside, put chocolate mousse. But… not only chocolate mousse, you can’t stop there, smother it with whipped cream and caramel sauce. Roll it up tight and cover it in ganache.

It sounds like heaven, but on the naughty side. This is so rich my mom couldn’t eat more than two bites. I am making 2 of them for tonight. We are celebrating my sister-in-law’s birthday, and little do they know about the chocolate death I will rain down upon them! *muh-ha-ha-ha*

Of course there is a picture, and a recipe. It is a little involved and takes a while to do because of the chilling of the mousse and somewhat difficult recipe for the sponge cake. The caramel sauce, ganache and whipped cream will probably take a whole 25 minutes for all three.

Even through all this, it is worth it. Every minute. You feel good making something that looks this good, and tastes awesome.

Here you will see the finished product, and the aftermath on the right. As I guessed, it went over well. I almost went for a second piece but I finished a few bites of my daughters for her, and I felt like I would explode. Oh, the yummy chocolate goodness! The chocolate fiends loved it, and felt there was sufficient chocolate involved, which is good, I don’t think i could have inserted more without pouring chocolate sauce INSIDE the roll as well. That would have been just plain crazy.

All in all, I think it took me 3-4 hours to make, but I took my time and had to wait for things to chill and cool. The caramel sauce was the big time waster. There are five different recipes. Next time I will do them in a different order to save time. Caramel will be first, then the cake, mousse, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream last. I also suggest using a quality chocolate. Last time I used baker’s chocolate, which of course tasted fine, but today I couldn’t find any bittersweet at the store. Instead I used Ghiradelli, and it made a big difference.

Sponge Cake Tips:

The first part, mixing the eggs and sugar is done over heat, like about 90 degrees. I used my double boiler, heated up the pan and then removed it from the bottom. When it cooled down, I started my mixing right inside it. When it was cold again, the bottom pan, now having sat off the heat was cooled down a bit. I put it back together and finished there. If this just won’t work with your situation, perhaps microwave your bowl for a little. Make sure you put some water in the bowl! If it is not heated, you won’t ruin it.

Sponge Cake Ingredients:

• 12 oz eggs
• 8 oz sugar
• 12 oz flour
• 2.5 oz  melted butter (5 tbsp)
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla or lemon flavoring

Whip the eggs and sugar over low heat for 10-15 minutes. The batter will be very light and airy, make sure it is an even consistency.

Sift in the flour into the eggs and fold in. Make sure there aren’t any pockets of flour! During this time, you will loose about 1/2 of your volume, just try to minimize this. The airy-ness is what makes it a sponge cake! It will be dense if it is over-mixed.

Add the vanilla and melted butter and gently combine.

Pan immediately, and put it right into the oven! You want to capture that airy-ness.

You will be using a cookie sheet, covered corner to corner with parchment paper, sprayed with some sort of food release spray.

Ladle half the dough onto each tray and spread evenly. Try to make it square, it won’t cover the entire tray. Make the dough about 1/2 inches thick, easy enough to roll up without breaking.

Pop them in the oven at 400F for about 4-6 minutes. Watch it carefully. As soon as the batter is set, and the edges are STARTING to brown, take it out. The radiant heat will continue to cook the cake, so pull the entire thing off the tray and let it cool on a flat surface.

Chocolate Mousse

• 8 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 2 oz butter
• 4 oz egg yolks
• 4 oz egg whites
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 4 oz heavy cream

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.

Remove from heat and melt the butter in the chocolate.

Move mixture to a bowl and begin to add the egg yolks, mixing just one at a time adding more as each is absorbed.

Beat the egg whites in a bowl until they form white peaks.

Add the sugar very slowly, little at a time until all combined (you are basically making a meringue).

Fold this into the chocolate mixture.

Beat the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Fold this into the chocolate mixture.

Here I will make the obligatory disclaimer. Do not serve mousse to children, the elderly, or anyone with a compromised immune system. The eggs are not cooked. You should use pasteurized eggs. And here is my statement, using pasteurized eggs does not provide the same results as regular eggs, the texture is different and it may not turn out as nice.

Caramel Sauce

• 8 oz sugar
• 2 oz water
• 3/4 tsp lemon juice
• 6 oz heavy cream
• milk

Heat the sugar, water and lemon juice and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.

When it is dissolved, cover the pan and boil for two minutes.

Uncover and cook until mixture turns a caramel color. Heat on medium to low so that the mixture doesn’t burn. It should be a nice golden brown color.

Remove from the heat and cool for 5 minutes.

Bring the heavy cream to a boil and add a few ounces to the caramel. Slowly add the cream, stirring the caramel.

Return to heat and stir until everything is dissolved.

Let the caramel cool completely.

If needed, add milk to thin.

Whipped Cream

• 3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3/4 c sugar
• 3 tsp vanilla

Whip the cream until soft peaks form.

Add the vanilla and slowly, slowly add the sugar as not to “break” it. Mix in each addition of sugar well.

Keep mixing until the desired consistency is reached.

Ganache

• 8 oz semi- or bitter sweet chocolate
• 3/4 c whipping cream
• 2 tbsp butter

Melt the chocolate and butter on a double boiler.

Add the whipping cream slowly or you will cool the chocolate too fast.

Stir well until smooth.

*whew*

Assembly:

With the sponge cake, spread on the mousse, whipped cream on top of that and drizzle on as much caramel as you can stand. You won’t use all of the mousse or cream, you can save that for a nice treat for yourself the next day, if  you have recovered. Carefully roll the sponge cake, lift the edge and use the parchment paper and peeling from it as a tool to get it nice and tight. If it splits, no big deal, you will be covering with ganache anyways and no one will notice. Take your time and do it right! Put it directly onto the plate you intend to serve it from. Hopefully by this time the chocolate will have cooled, it doesn’t need to be room temp, just not too hot to touch. Pour on the ganache, as much as you want, and drizzle with more caramel. Be creative and make it pretty! If you are going to go through this much work, you might as well do it right.

Store it in the refrigerator or someplace cool, here in Minnesota, in the fall, the garage is nice, just get it out of the hot kitchen. Treat it like an iced cake.

Questions? Comments? Did you try to make it? Tell me about it!