marzapan – Sweet Tooth Experiments

Lemon Almond and Lavender Roulade

For a long time now I have been playing with different flavour pairings of roulades. Thanks to my curiosity in experimenting I got hooked on continuing to play until I created a recipe I deemed blog-worthy. It may have taken about 7 attempts but I got there in the end. It took me about 3 goes to get the perfect sponge cake base that could bend seamlessly and not split as soon as it is rolled. I then also trial many flavour pairings where I went through Early Grey & Blueberry, Chestnut & Chocolate and a citrus blend to name a few…all were ok but nowhere near my expectations. It was the pairings combo of white chocolate, the multiple layers of almond flavour via almond meal & marzipan, lemon zest and lavender that created an end product of complimentary taste profiles.

Making a curd also meant that I could easily roll the roulade, handy as I struggled keeping the cream in place when using traditional filling methods.

Ingredients:

5 eggs
150g sugar
1 + ½ tbsn hot water
100g white chocolate
100g self raising flour
1 tsn ground dried lavender
2 tsn lemon zest

Curd:

2 egg yolks
2 eggs
160g marzipan
60ml lemon juice
100g butter
2 tsn ground lavender
½ tsn almond essence

Extra

30g almonds
Whipped cream or ice-cream to serve

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 175c degrees and line a 40cm x 20cm cake tin with baking paper.
Separate eggs and whisk egg yolks with the sugar with electric beaters until light and cream.
Add the hot water and beat for 1 minute.
Grate the chocolate into the egg yolk mix.
Add the flour to the egg yolk mix and fold until just combine.
Using electric beaters in a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until peaks form.
Fold 1/3^rd of the egg whites into the egg yolk mix until just combine to loosen the mix.
Add the remaining egg whites and fold until just combine.
Pour mix into the tin, even the top of the mix with the back of a spoon and bake for 12 minutes or until the cake springs back when touched.
Invert the hot cooked cake onto a piece of baking paper and cut off all 4 sides of the cakes crusts.
Roll the cake with the paper up into a log shape. The paper should be on top of the cake guiding the rolling. Leave for 5 mins to cool in the rolled shape.
Following unroll the cake and reroll without the paper, leave until the cake is fully cooled.
Place the curd ingredients into a saucepan and beat with a hand whisk on a low heat until the mix is well combine and thickened. Leave side to cool.
To assemble the roulade unroll the cake.
Spread the whole cake with the curd and grate OR finely diced the almonds over the curd (whichever you prefer. I personally like the diced almonds crunch).
Place a sheet of plastic wrap onto your bench and again, on top of the plastic wrap, roll the cake into a log shape following the roll shape you created earlier.
Place the plastic wrap around the outside of the roulade to seal the cake and into the fridge for 3 hours to set.
Remove the plastic wrap and cut the roulade into thick wheel shapes. Serve with a generous serving of whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream on top of the cake with the swirl pattern facing up, enjoy!

NOTE: I melted white chocolate with a little cream to create a white chocolate ganache that I drizzled over the completed cake just prior serving for some extra decoration.