Cooking Club at Ballymena Academy -Take 3

If you have been keeping up with the biz, you will know that I am currently going to a first time-ever ‘Cooking Club’ at my school, on Thursdays! We are in training for the ‘Whizz Kids’ competition coming in September/October time, and are practicing preparing a number of foods which test our different skills and abilities, pupils and teachers alike!

Cooking Club at Ballymena Academy -Take 3

On a quiet Thursday, we made a fluffy, delicious Swiss Roll! I found making the sponge itself fairly easy, but it was the rolling that was trickier… See how you get on !

We didn’t actually use a recipe on Thursday – our teacher just told us what to do as we went along – but here’s one adapted from this recipe that’s similar (more or less)!

Ingredients

For the Swiss roll:

3 eggs

75g caster sugar

75g self-raising flour

For the filling and decoration:

75g raspberry jam/ lemon curd

125ml double cream

100g raspberries

To serve:

Big sprinkle of sugar (caster or granulated)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F. Grease and line a 23cm x 30cm (9in x 12in) Swiss roll tin.
2. Whisk the eggs and sugar using either an electrical hand whisk or stand mixer in a bowl until pale, fluffy and creamy. This takes around 10 minutes using an electrical whisk. When it is whisked enough, you should be able to make a figure 8 in it using the whisk, and the shape should stay for around 6-8 seconds.
3. Gently fold in the flour. Incorporate it fully, but be gentle – you want to keep as many air bubbles in the mixture as possible.
4. Spoon the mixture into the tin, and spread out all the way to the edges.
5. Bake in the oven for 7-10 minutes – it should be light and springy to the touch.
6. While it is in the oven, cut out a large rectangle of greaseproof paper and place on a flat table. Sprinkle with an even layer of sugar.
7. Remove the sponge from the oven and turn it out onto the piece of greaseproof paper while still warm. Trim the edges of the sponge – about 1-2cm each side.
8. This is the tricky bit: with the longer end of the sponge facing you, fold the excess greaseproof paper onto the sponge, and then start to roll up the sponge away from you, keeping the edges straight and the roll quite tight (but not too tight – it might break). Leave that to cool while you make the filling and decoration.
9. Then Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Be careful to keep an eye on this – we accidentally over-whipped ours…
10. Gently stir in the raspberries to the cream, leaving a few for decoration. Don’t over-mix the raspberries because they can go mushy!
11. Gently unroll the nearly-cooled sponge, and spread the jam or lemon curd onto the sponge. Spread on most of the raspberry-cream (don’t be shy!), leaving a tiny gap around the edges.
12. Tightly roll up the sponge (with no greaseproof paper folded) to conceal the cream and jam. With some leftover cream, pipe on small peaks of cream along the top, scatter on some raspberries and sprinkle with a Flake.
13. Enjoy!

As you probably noticed, this recipe is slightly more difficult than the other recipes. But hey, if I can do it, you can definitely do it! It doesn’t use very many ingredients – so why not give it a go?