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The Chocolate Roll

from: chocroll

       ******* The Chocolate Roll ***


***  Recipe stolen from the public domain, and comments added by
     Joe Weisman of the Froggy Acres Church pastry kitchen

The chocolate roll is a delicate cake, about 10 by 17 inches by 1 inch
thick which is covered with flavored whipped cream and rolled into a
rough cylinder.  Proper fabrication of a chocolate roll is not difficult
for a highly skilled, dedicated, sincere and serene chef with several
years of experience dealing with the trials and frustrations which abound
in the kitchen.

Even a tyro can hope to produce chocolate rolls which are not inedible,
if he be willing to ruthlessly cull the failures (which will be most of
the first 50 chocolate rolls attempted).  The results are certainly not
worth the effort and expense required.

The Cake:

    5 eggs, separated into yolks and whites
    3 Tablespoons strong coffee
    6 ounces finest semi-sweet chocolate (this is very impor
         tant ingrediment.  Baker's German's sweet is fine,
         and some dark French cooking chocolates are finer yet
    1 cup white, refined, granular suger.  (sucrose)

Prepare a "jelly-roll" pan by greasing it, lining with a piece of
waxed paper which leave protruding at the ends a couple inches, and
greasing the paper.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.  When melted, add the coffee,
stir, and set aside to cool while

Whip the egg yolks till thickish and light in color (a couple minutes
with a power beater).  Add the sugar while whipping over a minute or
so, and whip another minute. Ideally this mixture should now be thicker
than heavy cream, light colored, and still slightly gritty with sugar
crystals.  Add the chocolate mixture to the yolks.  Mix till uniform
in color, or just before.

Whip the egg whites till stiff-but-not-dry.

Fold the whites and yolks together:  add about one quarter of the
whites to the yolks and mix, which will make a lighter mixture into
which to fold the rest of the whites.

Spread the cake in a roughly even layer in the prepared baking pan, and
bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. The baking time is critical,
and it is difficult to determine when the cake is done. Too little time,
and the chocolate roll will be gooey.  To much, and it will be crunchy, and
it won't roll up nicely anyway.  A toothpick inserted into the middle of a
properly baked cake will come out clean,but just barely.

Remove the cake from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.  Sprinkle a
tablespoon or so of cocoa (please don't use Nestle's any-thing, and don't
use sweetend chocolate drink mixes, what we want here is plain powdered
chocolate, dusty and bitter) over the cake and run a knife along the edges
to loosen them.  Lay a piece of waxed paper on the table and invert the pan
with cake in it over the paper.  By holding down the protruding end of waxed
paper and lifting up on the pan, you should be able to remove the pan fromp
the cake, leaving it lying on a piece of waxed paper and covered with
another.  Remove this latter mentioned carefully.  It helps to tear it off
in strips.

Whip up a cup of whipping cream till whipped.  Add the flavor of your
choice, which can be anything -- simplest is a couple tablespoons of sugar,
but we also use Cointreau, Kirsch, Creme de Cafe, Bitters, Tobasco Sauce
(truth!) and other bizarre substances.

Spread the cream over the cake, and roll it into a tube by lifting the
waxed paper under the long edge.  Move the completed roll onto a board
or suitable serving dish.  Dust with more cocoa, refrigerate if you can
stand to wait a hour or two, and eat.