Hey! I said No!

Ok, so ignore how cheesy my title is. I wanted to first apologize for not posting anything last week. It’s been a rough couple of weeks and it caught up with me last week. I took some time to focus on my self care and mental health. I’m still struggling, but its not as bad as it was. I also made a Gooey Pumpkin Cake last week and was totally going to post it… but then I realized that I forgot the sugar and it tasted awful! So I didn’t post it.

HOWEVER!!! On to bigger and better things!! I made a Pumpkin Roll this week!!! I felt really accomplished and everyone loves it. It’s not pretty by any stretch of the imagination, there’s a big crack down the side, but I still did it and that makes me happy.

Here’s what you need:

For the Cake:
Butter, for greasing the pan
2/3 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for flouring pan
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 
1 teaspoon baking powder 
1 teaspoon ground ginger 
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 
1 cup granulated sugar 
3 large eggs 
1/2 cup pumpkin puree 
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar 

For the Filling:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
Two 3-ounce packages cream cheese, softened 
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened 
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Oven Temperature: 375 degrees
Needed: a jelly roll pan; I think mine is a bacon pan, but it’s the same dimensions (10″x15″)

First things first, (I forgot to take a picture of this) you need to line your pan with a piece of parchment paper and then butter and flour it. I used a Pam that included butter and flour, it worked perfectly for me. I just made sure to saturate the parchment paper. I still haven’t learned the art of lining a pan with parchment paper, which could have caused one of my issues, but continue on and see what I mean.

Start by wisking together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, and baking powder. This part always smells so good!! I usually just stand there and smell it for a few minutes. Talk about aromatherapy!!

Set aside your dry ingredients. In another bowl, cream together your sugar and eggs. This takes about 5 minutes of beating. You want them to be a pale yellow color and seem really fluffy. Also, if you stick a finger in the mixture, it shouldn’t feel very grainy.

Then add your pumpkin. I use my mixer for this part, but I think you could just fold it in. I’m not sure if mixing the pumpkin adds anything or takes anything away. Once that’s mixed in, slowly add your dry ingredients to the mixture. Again, I used my hand mixer, but you can fold this in too. You just want to make sure it’s done slowly and its incorporated very well. The batter will be more wet than dry, like cake. Sorry I didn’t take a picture. I thought I did.

Fill the lined pan with the mixture, taking extra care to make it even. I thought I had done this, but I had an uneven rise in my cake. And this could have led to my eventual cracking of my cake when I rolled it.

Once that’s in the oven and cooking for 15 minutes, you want to lay out a dish towel (I personally find that a tea towel works best) and spread confectioners sugar over it. Now, because of how delicate this next step is, I didn’t have time to take a picture. So bear with me.

As soon as the cake is down baking you want to turn it out onto the sugared towel and roll it. I believe that I did my roll too tight, which caused cracking when I unrolled it, so maybe not so tight. But once it’s rolled, stick it into the refrigerator to cool fully. This can take about two hours. I think I could have left mine in a little longer, but I didn’t read my recipe before cooking, so I was running out of time.

Once the cake has cooled, you can make the filling. Combine the butter, cream cheese, vanilla, and confectioners sugar until fluffy and completely combined.

Unroll your roll and spread the filling on it. Again, mine started cracking straight away, so I need to revisit this recipe to work on my rolling. It’s a shame, really. Guess i’ll be eating more of this roll in my future.

You’re going to then roll it up and wrap it in some saran wrap and put it back into the fridge. This helps keep in all tight and pretty. I was dead set on leaving it over night but you know how that goes. I just HAD to cut myself a piece, for science.

Needless to say, it’s amazing and looks great too. This recipe was one of those that I was afraid to try. The idea of rolling a cake just seemed daunting to me. But once I did it, it felt silly to be scared of cake.

I feel like that’s like life in a way. Stepping out of your comfort zone can be scary, but when you do it and look back, it seems very silly to feel this way.

I hope that you get to try this recipe for yourself. It’s very rewarding and very good! Next week is Thanksgiving, so you’ll get my Pumpkin Pie recipe on Thursday (Thanksgiving) instead of Tuesday. Sorry my friends, but you can’t make pie too early. Maybe I’ll drop it Wednesday night… maybe.

Thanks for all the support and understanding as I travel through these moments in time.

With Light and Love,

Lissie