Roasted Strawberry Roll Up Cake

After the hottest week of the summer, it has FINALLY cooled off. Thank goodness!

Of course, I had the perfect luck, having planned two college tours in Boston on what turned out to be the single hottest day this year – with temperatures around 100 F. Who wouldn’t have loved two outdoor hour-long walking tours?

It’s also been pretty buggy around here. I got seriously munched at a pool party the other day – I now have 19 bug bites on one leg and 12 on the other. No joke, it looks like I have chicken pox! Not to mention the unbelievable itchiness…trust me, I’m trying reallllly hard not to scratch.

Bug bites aside, now that the temperature has dropped a bit, I can turn the oven on without feeling guilty about the added heat. Which means I totally spent this whole afternoon baking a cake.

I’ve been dying to make a roll up cake for weeks, ever since I read Vintage Cakes, a cake cookbook by Julie Richardson. The cakes she makes have mouthwatering flavors and look SO pretty. I’m also a huge history geek, so anything old-school is right up my alley.  The roll cakes definitely caught my eye, so I baked up a twist on the Butterscotch Roll Up, switching out the butterscotch filling for one with roasted fresh strawberries. Essentially, it’s an up-scaled strawberry shortcake, perfect for summer. Yum!

However, the rules on recipe etiquette are tricky, so if you’d like to find this exact cake recipe, head on over to your local library, bookstore, or Amazon to pick up a copy of Vintage Cakes – I totally recommend buying a copy. Otherwise, any basic chiffon cake will do for this recipe (try this one or this one).

Roasted Strawberry Roll Up Cake

Chiffon cake from Vintage Cakes, Roasted Strawberry Filling is my own 🙂

For the cake:

1 batch of vanilla chiffon cake batter

Preheat the oven to the required temperature. Line a 12 by 16 (this is important!) baking tray with parchment paper. Spray the parchment paper and dust with flour, knocking off the excess. Bake until the cake is barely golden and springs back when lightly touched. Let cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the filling!

For the filling:

1 1/2 cups of strawberries, washed, hulled, and quartered

1 tablespoon of granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream (do NOT substitute half and half, it will not become whipped cream)

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Tear off a large piece of aluminum foil and fold up the edges, creating a small “bed” of sorts to catch any roasted strawberry juice. Toss the strawberries with the granulated sugar and pour them onto the tray. Roast them for about 15 minutes, or until the juices are running out but the strawberries still maintain their shape. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.

In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the heavy whipping cream on medium, then high until stiff peaks are just starting to form. Pour in the COOLED roasted strawberries – if you don’t wait the whole thing will turn to soup. Sadly, experience is speaking here. Turn the mixer on to medium to beat in the strawberries. Keep refrigerated until usage.

To assemble:

Lay the cake out flat, still in the parchment. Spread half of the filling out over the cake, leaving a small ring of pure cake on the outside. Lift the parchment paper up to fold one of the shorter ends over itself. Continue rolling the cake by lifting and peeling the parchment paper. Once the cake is rolled, place the side with the cake end on the bottom of your serving platter. Optionally, you can cut off the ends of your cake, or keep them intact if they look pretty 🙂 Use the rest of the filling to frost the cake. Refrigerate for one hour before serving. Enjoy – preferably with ice cream!

Yours in itch-land,

Deanna