Chestnut Jelly Roll

I've been making rolled cakes for more than a few years now. My first was the classic bûche de noël, a traditional French holiday cake filled with chocolate butter cream and covered in chocolate frosting and made to resemble a log. I did that several years in a row.

A jelly roll filled with chestnut cream.

This past fall, however, I tried just a plain roll with jelly filling topped with powdered sugar. I used a recipe by Julia Child (my previous recipe was by Jacques Pépin) and it was a great success. It turns out that Julia's recipe makes just the right amount of batter for my pan, and results in a softer, spongier cake. It even uses fewer eggs than Jacques' recipe.

First step: the pan is buttered and lined with buttered kitchen parchment.

The cake was light and spongy, and it rolled up perfectly. I made the recipe a couple times with consistent results. So I was encouraged to make another just the other day. I got a can of crème de marrons (sweetened purée of chestnuts) from the supermarket and thought that would make a good filling.

Les ingrédients.

The cake is made with egg yolks, sugar, ground almonds, flour, and beaten egg whites. Julia says it's almost like a soufflé, only it's cooked in a sheet rather than in a soufflé mold. It turns out wonderfully spongy. I imbibed it with some leftover quince liqueur, but any brandy would do.

Beating the egg whites.

We lightened the chestnut cream with crème fraiche (French cream) and filled the cake with it. I think I baked the cake a little too long because it cracked slightly when I rolled it. If I were doing it for guests I might have frosted it to hide the cracks, but since it's just for us the cracks really didn't matter.

The (slightly overdone) cake and a can of crème de marrons.

And the cake is delicious, if I do say so myself. It's not heavy at all because it's sponge cake, and even less so because it's not frosted. The flavor of the brandy comes through as well.

Finished and rolled cake. It can be served like this, or frosted.

Next time I'll have to remember to take the cake out of the oven sooner. Once it looks done, it's already overdone. But no matter, it still tastes the same. By the time it's imbibed and filled, the cake regains its moist and spongy quality, even if the edges crack a bit.