It starts off with an urge to make something new. Something challenging because the cooking competitions have shown that if you don’t push yourself , you will be eliminated, not from the face of earth, just the show. I am not in a show or a competition but I want to torture myself so, bring it on you simple-looking-monstrous recipes out there! After minimal search, I land on desserts (how predictable) and slowly hover over Swiss Roll recipes. Looks tempting and deceiving. It promises to be a delicious treat if implemented correctly, or else — now wait, why being pessimistic already? I rather start on a high note and sulk half-way through, probably, throw in some “what was I thinking?’ when everything crumbles (literally and metaphorically).
The recipe looked ‘fine’ and its end product looked delicious so I decided to make it. What can go wrong if the lovely lady in the video assures that it’s simple to make and feels like eating ‘chocolate air.’ I am no expert to tell you how ‘chocolate air’ tastes like or what exactly is ‘chocolate air’ but, I sure fell for it and wanted to find out what that fabricated word meant (find out the hard way). Plain and simple, let me explain the recipe (‘plain’ and ‘simple’ to be highlighted). Basically, it involves baking a very thin cake, flipping and rolling it with paper/towel as soon as it is out of the oven, unrolling after it cools, applying cream filling then rolling it again, cooling and then pouring a liquid filling over it. Damn! That sounds like one twisted fun. I am immediately game for it!
I like how recipe videos show a person cooking using utensils and gadgets an industrialized kitchen will contain and simply say, ‘you can make this at home.’ Umm, sure! Geez! I wish they put a disclaimer at the start of the recipe stating, ‘if by any chance you don’t have the exact same things that we employed for this dish, please don’t bother making it.’ This recipe requires a long, thin rectangular tray for baking and obviously, I didn’t have one so I decided to go rogue. I decided to use a rectangular tray, half the mentioned size, and bake the batter in two batches. Smart, eh? Not! Will find out soon enough. The recipe calls for separating egg whites and beating it with sugar to get a cloud-like fluff consistency. On any ordinary day I am an ‘eggs-pert’ meaning I can have a no-mess, clean cracked egg. But, on that day, let’s just say I subconsciously wanted to have fun. The process of separation was messy and I ended up with first-of-its-kind, yellow-coloured egg whites. They said to beat the egg whites for 10-15 mins and I was at it for close to half-an-hour in the hope that ‘clouds’ will form in my bowl. I tried with different speeds of the beater and even held it at different angles; like Rambo with his machine gun, I was firing at my egg whites screaming with sweat and tears. Too bad, the egg whites didn’t fall for drama. I stopped to check online and learned that if there is a single trace of egg yolk or any kind of fat in the egg whites, it won’t fluff. Pfft.. Say that to my yellow egg whites. I moved on.
The rest of the procedure was straight-forward with no hiccups. The fun part came when I had to flip the cake as soon as it was out of the oven. The recipe showed an elegant manner in flipping the cake onto a cocoa dusted paper/towel. Mine, was exactly like a scene from the cartoons. I flipped the tray and with a large ‘thud’ the thin cake fell on paper. On impact, the cocoa powder flew up my nose, into my eyes and settled on all surrounding objects. It was ‘cocoa magic’ everywhere. Moving on..I then rolled it with paper and kept it aside like a neatly parceled Masala Dosa. Just before unrolling, I made the whipped cream mix which looked fluffy and let’s just say it was one gigantic bowl of white goodness. The recipe called for gentle unrolling after which the cake is supposed to stay soft and bendy. The video showed a promising looking thin cake. So, I unroll it, carefully with precision. I can see it flatten and as I progress, I see my ‘high hopes’ flattening too. Instead of a soft flexible cake, what lay was longitudinal strips of chocolate cake-ish pieces. After investigation it turns out, since I used a small tray, there was not enough cake to compress and hold its form when rolled. Anywho, this meant I had to stop as there was no damage control module after this. It was beyond redemption. Many thoughts flutter by (predominantly about insecurity) and the giant question of why on earth did i prepare so much whipped cream? There is only so much cream that a person can eat! I accept (and eat) my defeat. And then came the twist. Turns out, those strips of broken cake were delish! One of the best chocolate cake (strips) I’ve ever had. Quickly, future plans fall in place. This cake alone can be the star recipe for another time (a very long time from now).
In conclusion: I got to roll my eyes and eat a lot of flying cocoa. I guess that suffices the bit on ‘Swiss roll’ and ‘Chocolate air’.
〜 Fin 〜
It read like a good mis-adventure to have.
Oh, it was 😉