Halloween Pumpkin Roll

For a spooktacular dessert, spin a Thanksgiving favorite into a frightful Halloween treat by baking a spider web design into the rolled cake. Use this Pumpkin Roll recipe to make your batter. Take 1/2 cup of the batter and stir in 1 1/2 tablespoons of dark cocoa powder (or regular cocoa powder if that’s all you have). Put the dark batter into a pastry bag fitted with a small round tip. I used a size 4, as the batter isn’t super thick. Line your jelly roll pan with a sheet of parchment paper.

Now you need a pattern to trace. You can do this one of two ways: Either put paper with a design under the parchment so it shows through or draw a design on the underside of your parchment with a pencil. (Because of its texture, markers don’t work as well.) If you create a design that uses words or numbers, remember to print/write in reverse, because it’s the underside of the design you’ll see once it’s baked. If you want to use the spiderweb design I created, (I used two sheets for my large pan), you can download it here:

Once your design is ready to “trace,” simply pipe over the lines you see through the parchment. Remember the batter is thinner than frosting, so go easy until you get a feel for it. When all lines are piped, bake the design for 4 minutes or so in the oven, at the temperature for your recipe. You can also freeze the design for 15 minutes if your freezer is big enough for the pan. (Mine wasn’t.)

Once the pattern is baked or frozen, carefully layer over the remaining non-colored batter, using an offset spatula to make it even and smooth. Make sure the pattern is completely covered. Bake as directed in your recipe and finish the roll as usual. I noticed when removing the parchment paper after baking, the edges sometimes liked to stick to the pattern, so remove the parchment slowly when the time comes.

I would wait to cut the roll until ready to serve, so your guests get the full impact of your design. And remember the part of the design mostly seen is about one-third in from the ending side when you roll. The rest will be under or inside the roll.

Other Cake Roll Ideas…

Traditional pumpkin rolls are just one kind of rolled cake. Using the same process of baking a design into a cake, you can use a lighter-shaded batter and food coloring to create endless design possibilities. Stripes and dots are easy to do. I drew the stripes with a pencil on the backside of the parchment which kept me in line.

While I bake from scratch for myself, I tried the above rolls with an angel food cake mix. It worked, but was a bit fiddly, as that isn’t what the cake mix is really designed for. But it can be done. Better to make a true sponge cake that rolls well. You can find some great recipes for other roll cakes here.

And all sorts of filling work, from buttercream, whipped cream and lemon curd, pastry cream, etc., or the super simple whipped topping and instant pudding mixture I did above.

Hopefully, you’re inspired to create your own fun designs and flavor combos. And you won’t be scared to try to make a cake roll of your own. 🙂