Pumpkin Roll
This classic recipe just screams Thanksgiving. While the baking and mixing is simple, the technique is intimidating at first, but not difficult to master. Make sure and follow the instructions and the timing carefully, or you will end up with a broken cake and/or a gooey mess. At our house, we make two each Thanksgiving: one with nuts, and one without. Neither last very long.
Preheat your oven to 375° F. Prepare a 15X10X1 jelly-roll pan by either lining with a silicon mat or by lining with greased and floured parchment or waxed paper. Find a clean, thin towel make of cotton and sprinkle it liberally with powdered sugar. You’ll need this later to roll up the cake.
Whisk together in a bowl and set aside:
¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
In a mixer, or by using a hand mixer, beat together until thickened:
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
Mix in well
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla
Stir the flour mixture into the wet mixture until well combined. Spread batter evenly in your prepared jelly roll pan. Batter will be in a thin layer. If desired, sprinkle surface of batter with 1 cup finely chopped raw pecans or walnuts. Bake at 375° F for about 13 to 15 minutes, until the cake is done and springs back lightly when you touch the center. As soon as you remove the pan from the oven, use a thin spatula to make sure the edges are loose from the pan, place your kitchen towel, sugar side down, on top of the warm cake. Flip the pan over and lift off the metal pan. Carefully remove either the silicon mat or the paper baking. Starting at the narrow end, roll up the cake while it’s still warm and set aside, still rolled up, to cool on a rack. This will take about an hour. Now you can make the filling.
Beat together well:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
Once cake is COMPLETELY cool, carefully unroll it. If you did nuts, you’ll want those on the outside. Either way, I like to put down plastic wrap on top of my unrolled cake, flip it over onto a cookie sheet, then turn it onto another sheet pan covered with plastic wrap. Then I spread on the cream cheese filling, to the edge, and use the plastic wrap to help me roll it up, staring on the narrow end. I keep it wrapped tight in the same plastic, seal up the ends, and carefully move it to a tray and refrigerate it for a few hours before unrolling it from the plastic and cutting it for service.
If during this unrolling and rerolling process, if your cake tears or breaks in places, no worries. As you roll it up, it will all hold together and no one will ever know about the hole in the middle. The taste will be the same, and the look won’t suffer. Don’t you wish all your mistakes were deliciously edible?
Pumpkin Spice Latte Roll Variation
To change up the flavor in the filling, you can dissolve a spoonful of instant coffee in your vanilla and add ½ teaspoon of pumpkin spice to your powdered sugar. You can add more or less instant coffee according to your taste.
