Even though Cake Rolls aren’t a Japanese inventions they are pretty popular in Japan. Aside from that the cute print makes them totally ‘Kawaii’ of course! As a collaboration between AVO Blog and MuchMunchies I love to share recipes with a Japanese side to them, but these are not my only recipes.
Difficulty level: ✩✩✩
This is based on the long preparation time (not including the waiting time in between), the fact that beating egg whites can be hard for some people and the amount of steps there are to this recipe.
What you’ll need:
♡ Template (Link)
♡ Baking pan (The one I used was 38,7 centimetres by 26 centimetres, but you could use one a little smaller)
♡ Baking paper + Scissors
♡ Electric Mixer + Beaters
♡ Measuring Spoons
♡ 3 Mixing Bowls (At least)
♡ 6 Bowls or Glasses
♡ 6 (disposable) Piping bags
♡ Small or Barbecue skewers
♡ Pastry Brush
♡ Optional: Palette knife
♡ Optional: 6 Small Piping tips (For example the Wilton tip 1 or 2)
♡ Optional: Cooling rack
♡ Optional: Kitchen Paper
Ingredients:
♡ Cake Mix
- 3 egg yolks*
- 30 grams of (fine) caster sugar
- 40 grams of sunflower oil
- 60 grams of water
- ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 80 grams of flower
- 10 grams of flower
- Gel Food colouring (The colours you want to create are red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.)
♡ Meringue (small amount)
- 1 egg white*
- 5 grams of (fine) caster sugar
♡ Meringue (big amount)
- 3 egg whites*
- 25 grams of (fine) caster sugar
♡ Simple Syrup
- 4 tablespoons of water
- 4 tablespoons of sugar
♡ Filling
- 100 grams of whipping cream**
- ¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract (or more, to taste)
- Optional: A few strawberries
♡ Optional: Lemon juice**
* These ingredients need to be at room temperature.
** These ingredients need to be cold, keep these in the refrigerator until use.
Method
Preparation: Put the template in your baking pan with a piece of baking paper, which you’ve cut to the right size, over it. If your baking paper moves or curls up you can put some objects on it to get it straight again, before piping. I used Barbecue skewers for this.
TIP: For this recipe you’ll need separated egg whites and egg yolks. You can separate the eggs yourself, do make sure your bowls are clean and free of any fat stains, just like the beaters you use for beating. So wash and dry them well, I often dry them using kitchen paper. I also often use lemon juice and a piece of kitchen paper to really defat the bowl and beaters well. Be sure to dry the bowl and beaters after this with kitchen paper.
♡ Step 1: Put the egg yolks and sugar that is meant for the cake mix in a bowl. Beat the egg yolks until they’ve increased in volume and have become more pale in colour.
♡ Step 2: Add the sunflower oil and water slowly while beating the mixture on a slow speed, make sure everything is well combined and then add the vanilla extract. Mix this through well too.
♡ Step 3: Sift the bigger amount of flower and add this to the mixture. Mix this through using your electric mixer, until you see no more flower.
♡ Step 4: Put two tablespoons of this mixture, the cake mix, in a separate bowl. Measure there tablespoons well, using special measuring spoons, so you are sure you’ve got the right amount. Add the remaining 10 grams of flower to these 2 tablespoons of cake mix and mix it through well.
♡ Step 5: Whip up the egg white, meant for the small amount of meringue, with the sugar that is meant for this as well until it forms stiff peaks.
♡ Step 6: Fold half of the whipped up egg white, in three additions, through the 2 tablespoons of cake mix carefully. If you mix too hard the air will escape and the egg white will deflate.
♡ Step 7: Divide this mixture, that started with the 2 tablespoons of cake mix, over 6 bowls or glasses. Then add the right colours and mix this carefully. If you mix too hard the air will escape and the egg white will deflate.
♡ Step 8: Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
♡ Step 9: Put the 6 colours of cake mix in 6 separate piping bags, if you’d like you can add piping nozzles to the piping bags before adding the cake mix to make drawing the hearts easier.
♡ Step 10: Now prepare the big amount of meringue, whip up the egg whites with the sugar, until you’ve created stiff peaks. Add half of the small amount of meringue from earlier, so everything you had left over.
♡ Step 11: Fold the egg white, in three additions, through the left over, non-coloured, cake mix carefully. If you mix too hard the air will escape and the egg white will deflate.
♡ Step 12: Cut a very small tip of off one of the piping bags, if you’re not using a piping nozzle, and fill the hearts of the same colour as the mix in the piping bag. Don’t use too much mixture on one heart, you’ll have quite a bit of colour left over once you’re done. You could only pipe a dot in the middle, if you’d prefer, and then use a small skewer to shape it into a heart. This way you can adjust the hearts that are a bit misshapen as well.
TIP: You can make both version of the coloured pattern with this amount of coloured cake mixture, even then you still might have some left overs. When you want to make another cake with the leftover coloured mix you’ll have to prepare 1x cake mix, without the extra 10 grams of flower and 1x the bigger amount of meringue. You prepare the cake the same way! You could also make a tie dye cake or one with a random stripe pattern. You don’t have to throw the mix out. For the filling you’ll need 100 grams of whipping cream, ¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract and a few strawberries for every cake.
♡ Step 13: Put the baking pan in the preheated oven for only 2 minutes.
♡ Step 14: If you’d like you could remove the template from underneath the baking paper now, do make sure the hearts don’t slide around and that you don’t burn your fingers, but you could also leave it underneath the baking paper. Spread the non-coloured mixture over the hearts carefully with a knife or palette knife, in your baking pan. Try to divide it as well as you can. It’s not a disaster if it isn’t entirely even.
♡ Step 15: Bake the whole cake for another 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Before taking the cake out you can test whether it’s done by pricking it with a small skewer. If there’s no wet dough stuck to it the cake is done.
♡ Step 16: Take the cake out of the oven, when it’s done and place baking paper over the cake. After this I placed a cooling rack over it and flipped the cake, but you could also do this without a cooling rack, using a cutting board or something like that. Carefully remove the baking paper, under which you can see the pattern, and place another new piece of baking paper over it. Let the cake cool entirely in this way, without the cooling rack or anything underneath it, just on a table or counter.
♡ Step 17: Make the Simple Syrup now, you can do this by adding one part water to one part sugar and heating this until the sugar has dissolved. For this recipe you need about 4 tablespoons of water and 4 tablespoons of sugar. Let this cool down.
TIP: Whip up the cold whipping cream in a cold bowl with cold beaters. This makes it easier to whip up the whipping cream. You can cool the bowl and beaters by putting them into the refrigerator a while before use.
♡ Step 18: Once the cake has cooled down you should whip up the whipping cream. I standardly do this without sugar, because whipping cream already contains sugar, and with vanilla extract. If you’d like cute some strawberries into four pieces, after removing the stem.
♡ Step 19: Flip the cake so the print is at the bottom and at the top. Cut the bottom and top off of the cake in a straight line and brush the cake with Simple Syrup.
♡ Step 20: Spread the whipped cream onto the cake, using a knife or a palette knife, and leave about 2 centimetres not covered at the top side, where the print is. Add the strawberries in three rows, one in the middle and 2 about 2 centimetres away from the middle, if you’d like to add strawberries.
♡ Step 21: Roll up the cake, with the help of the baking paper, from the bottom up to the top. Roll the baking paper around it, like a candy wrapper, and use two elastics to close it off. You can shape the cake a little now if you’d like. Put it in the refrigerator.
♡ Step 22: Right before you want to serve the cake you should cut off the sides neatly and place the cake on the plate you want to serve it on.
♡ Enjoy!
This cake is deliciously fluffy and light and looks very cute. Perfect for Valentine’s Day or any other day you want to enjoy some cute and tasty cake!
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