Another, yes, another Farewell – My Unsolved Dillemmas – A Reminiscence: My Basic Swiss Rolls

Baking Diary – Log 9 – 12.05.2012

I remember how Long-legs always loved my Swiss Rolls every time I made them. So, this post is my recipe for the basic Swiss Roll cake. The last time I made it was on Lovely’s farewell.

Basic Swiss Rolls

This recipe is a soft, spongy, no cracking when being rolled, easy to make and very enjoyable in version of Swiss Roll. The sweetness is mild, suitable for any kind of filling, jams whipped creams, or fresh fruits.

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Ingredients

(Baked in a 40x40cm deep baking pan, made two 7cm-diameter Swiss rolls at 20cm long)

Ingredients needed

Mixture 1

• 5 egg yolks
• 40g granulated white sugar
• 100g all-purpose (or cake) flour
• 20g corn flour
• 50g milk
• 50g oil
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mixture 2

• 5 egg whites
• 70g granulated white sugar
• ¼ tsp. cream of tartar (or ½ tsp. lemon juice and ¼ tsp. salt)

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Instructions

This recipe will use egg yolks and whites separately in 2 different mixtures. After preparing each mixture, they will be folded together as one. This technique ensures the softness and pliability of the cake; make it easy to roll in without the risk of cracking the cake sheet.

Step 1: Let your eggs out of the fridge for 30 minutes or so to warm up. If in a hurry, get a big bowl of warm (not hot) water; submerge the eggs in for 5 to 10 minutes until they come to room temp. Please do so. Why, you might ask? I will explain it later in the next steps.

Step 2: Preheating your oven at 190 degree Celsius.

In 2 cleaned mixing bowl (small for the yolks and big for the whites), separate egg yolks from whites, making sure that there is no yolk lingering in the white mixture, as it will affect seriously the expanding in volume when beating the whites. So do pay attention here, please.

Step 3: Making of Mixture 1. In a dry deep dish, weight out the flours and baking powder, and use a hand whisk to mix them well. Mix the wet ingredients also by combining yolks, sugar, milk, oil, and vanilla extract together in the bowl, mix well.

Now combining the 2 of them to make mixture 1 by gradually shift the dry mix into the wet mix while whisking constantly to create a lump-free, rather thick batter, like this.

Yolk batter – Mixture 1

Step 4: In this recipe, the successfully creating the meringue (beaten egg whites-sugar mixture name) is fatally important. Therefore, I will list out 4 typical mistakes I’ve made when beating egg white, for you, to prevent doing, like I did:

1. Eggs at the wrong temperature – Egg whites at room temperature are the best and can be beaten to the greatest volume and stiffness, that’s why at the very beginning step of this recipe, I suggest you to warm up your eggs.

2. Using the wrong kind of mixing bowl + Bowl Clearness – Metal or glass mixing bowls are best for beating egg whites. Copper is the best container for beating meringue, follow by stainless steel, glass and finally plastic. Why is that? It due to complex reaction between egg white proteins with the chemical made of the bowl. Furthermore, plastic bowl can retain fat and grease, which inhibits the volume of the egg whites. Whichever type of bowl you use is fine; just make sure it’s spotlessly clean. And I mean it!

3. Trace of yolk in the egg whites – As I said in the 2^nd step, any trace of yolk will ruin your meringue. Resist the temptation to dip a finger in to get it out, just make the situation worse. Some people use a piece of bread or a cotton-bud tip to remove the yolk. I sometimes use a spoon to scoop the yolk out.

But honestly speaking, it’s best to discard that egg. For this reason, I advice you to separate each egg into a small bowl first, and add the egg whites after each time to the bigger mixing bowl. By doing this way, if a yolk manages to break into the white, you need only discard that one egg white, not the whole batch. 🙂

4. Adding sugar too quickly – Sugar needs to be added tablespoon by tablespoon at the soft-peak stage. This is laborious, but don’t be tempted to add the whole lot at once. Dissolved sugar attracts moisture, which can ruin your meringue. Superfine sugar dissolves more quickly.

So my process of beating egg white is as follow. In a big cleaned mixing bowl of separated egg whites, add cream of tartar or lemon/salt mix. Beat them by a handheld or a stand mixer with whisk attachment at medium speed until foamy, like this, take 1 minute. You will see the egg whites turn into an opaque foam, and then a “soft plop” stage where a drizzle of the foam holds its shape on the surface of the egg whites.

Foam stage

Then add sugar in, one tbsp. at a time on low speed to avoid splashing; takes about 2 minutes.

Increase the speed to high. Beat the egg whites for 5 minutes. Here is the meringue at soft-peak stage: the peak cannot hold its shape when you lift the whisk up, and easily slump over.

Soft Peak

Beat for other 3 minutes, the meringue will reach the next stage – firm peak, where the egg whites are much glossier, with a tight surface. They hold peaks on a spoon or in the bowl, but their very tips flop over. Like this.

Firm Peak

Continue to beat at high speed for 3 more minutes until you see the meringues reach the final stage – stiff peak, where the meringue will hold almost any shape. It will form sharp, distinct points in the bowl, and it is quite stiff and glossy. It should feel smooth and silky, with no sugar grains. Like this.

Stiff peak

Step 5: Now we will fold the yolk and white mixture together. First, scoop 1/3 of the meringue in to the yolk mix.

Scoop 1/3 beaten whites to Mix 1

Use your spatula to fold them together to ‘temper’ the batter, which will make it easier to mix in the rest of the egg white. You don’t need to be gentle at this stage, just give them some stir to combine and loosen the yolk mixture. At the end, you will have a mixture like this.

Yolk batter after adding 1/3 white

Now, Hold the yolk-mixture-containing bowl over the white mixing bowl tilt it so that the yolk batter slide out into the meringue.

Simply follow this process: 1) Using a large spatula cut a path down the middle of the mixture with the edge of the spatula. 2) Then gently turn half the mixture over onto the other half. 3) Continue cutting down the middle and turning a portion over. Like demonstrated in this video.

Please don’t forcefully stir this fragile batter. The purpose of folding is to retain the air you have beaten into the whites. Be careful to only work the batter enough to incorporate the whites, and never use an electric mixer for this step. After this step, you will have a batter like this.

Final Cake batter

Step 6: Prepare the baking pan by lined a sheet of baking paper into the pan. Don’t grease the paper, or spray nonstick cooking oil on it. The batter supposes to stick to the paper in order to rise highly by “climbing”.

How to line the pan

Step 7: Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Shake and spread the batter evenly into every corner. Now, slam the pan real hard onto your kitchen counter, couple of times. Stress reliving, yes, and also to break all the big air bubbles left in the batter, preventing the cake from baked unevenly. After this, you have a pan of batter, like this.

Before baking

Step 8: Place the pan on the middle rack of your oven. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes, until the top of the cake is golden brown. When the batter is being baked in the oven, dampen a 40x40cm kitchen towel or a cloth for later use in the next step. After baking, you will have a pan like this.

After baking

Step 9: Now cover the cake sheet with the prepared damp towel;

Cover the top with damp towel

The flip the pan over, to get the cake out. Now peel the baking paper out, it could come out rather easily.

Peel the baking paper out

Step 10: With the bottom up, damp towel still cover it, roll the cake sheet fairly tightly into a big cylinder, like demonstrated in this picture.

How to roll the cake sheet

Step 11: Now wrap the cylinder with plastic tightly and let it cool down in the fridge for 30 minutes. While waiting, prepare your favorite fillings: jams, chocolate ganache, whipped cream, or buttercream, etc. For this batch, I used simply whipped cream. Here, I cut the big cylinder in half with intention to make 2 different filling.

Wrap the roll with plastic like this

Step 12: Now get the cake cylinder from the fridge, open it out. Spread your favorite fillings on, and roll back again into a roll.  And you have it, your basic Swiss rolls. 🙂

Cut it into pieces. And enjoy!

Basic Swiss Rolls

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I am having one of the biggest dilemmas that I don’t know how to solve yet. 😦 I want to come back to Vietnam to write my thesis. There are 3 reasons why I want to do that:

1. I miss my family and want to spend as much time with them as possible. Yeah, I still worry about 2012’s end of the world. Don’t think that this is childish, who knows what will happen… Family has always been my 1^st priority.
2. There is a very interesting baking course in Vietnam that I really, really want to attend. They start this course only on 1^st of June or 20^th of August, or 1^st of November, and it lasts 3 months. 😦 This could improve my baking and decorating skill a lot.
3. To be more economic! Honestly speaking, living in Finland is much more expensive then in Vietnam, especially now when I stay at home all the time and don’t really have to go to school anymore.

I cannot come back to Vietnam because of 3 critical reasons, as below:

1. Visa! I have just applied for my extension of resident permit at a police station, about 3 weeks ago. I don’t know when I will receive it. I have to have my visa in order to come back to Finland in November to attend to the final thesis seminar. Going nowhere without this!
2. Thesis writing! Going back to Vietnam meaning a lot of distraction to my thesis writing. Furthermore, in Vietnam, there is little resource for references, not a lot of English written books, which will affect deeply the quality of my thesis. And yes, I want my thesis to be perfect. 😦
3. Housing! If I want to come back to Vietnam now. It means time to move out! Time to pack up all the stuff after 3 year living in Finland. And that is utterly exhausting, super time and effort consuming. In addition to that, I have to find a place to stay when I come back to Finland in November for my thesis seminar, a place where they are willing to lease for about 1 week, and only one week!

I don’t know what to do now, to compromise all this. 😦 It is a mess in my mind now. I wish I could find 1 solution that fit it all. I asked my Mom about it yesterday, she seemed distracted by her working trip, so I don’t want to bother her much. I do want someone to help me now, desperately.

God, please answer me, what should I do now?

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As if this mess is not complicated enough, there is an add-on to all this inside my mind now, I have to, once again, saying goodbye to one of my best memories of my student life here in Finland, Long-legs.

I realized a long time ago that very soon, we would all graduate, move away, and pursue different paths of life. There is nothing I could do to stop that, and I have no right to. I just wish that time did not have to pass by so fast.

It seems just like second ago when the 4 of us were still living in the same building together, running back and forth to other’ places, talking, singing, baking, and travelling together. 😦

Long-legs’ flight to Vietnam will depart very early tomorrow morning. So this is dedicated to her.

D, you are a wonderful friend that I must be very blessed to have. Even though, we had misunderstandings in the past, in my heart, I always know and believe that we would work those out in the end. 🙂 After all, we have fought for the best, to understand each other’s feeling, to realize the best of each other, and to tighten this relationship we are having. There is no great friendship without conflicts, right?

Now, you are packing for another turn of your life path. I wish you all the best in your journey. You are a very sweet and devoting girl. I have seen your great care and concern for others’ feelings, sometimes to the limit of sacrifice your own. I cannot stand seeing others undermine that. Please watch out for yourself, take good care of it, too, as you do to ours.

I have seen your tears when you lost believe in love. I always believe that out there is a man who will love you for who you are, treasure your tears, cherish your heart, and treat you like his princess, because I know you are sure at hell deserve someone like that.

I wish you well.

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I can feel that this life is passing through, like dusts of sand, slipping out of my hand. I try to hold them back. I squeeze harder. They keep trickling through my fingers…

This will all come to an end.

Rose,