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Welcome to Simple Fare, Fairly Simple. This is a place for me to post recipes of all kinds...along with other miscellaneous fodder from my so-called life here in the south. Who knows what you will find here. Could be anything from my husband...known as IT Guy...to my kids and beautiful grandbabies that are growing up way too fast right before my eyes. But...mostly this will be a place for food. I hope you'll see something you like and if you decide to try something from the list...leave me a comment and let me know!



Thursday, April 5, 2012

I had high hopes for this recipe. I had a vision of a beautiful chocolate roll with a wonderful whipped cream filling oozing out the ends with pretty red strawberries mixed in. Alas...it was not meant to be. Everything went according to plan until I unrolled the cake and it broke into pieces. I'll have to tweak it to see where I went wrong but I'm thinking it was the baking time. I was afraid I would overbake it so in my attempt to make sure that didn't happen, I must have underbaked it. Oh well, it made a gorgeous trifle that tasted great!!

Gluten Free Chocolate Roll 
(that turned into a trifle)



6 ounces semisweet bittersweet chocolate
3 strong coffee
6 large eggs, at room temperature, separated
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, divided

2 cups sliced strawberries
1 cup diced strawberries for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 10x15 inch baking sheet with coking spray. Then lay down a piece of parchment paper with one inch hanging over the short ends of the pan.

In a small saucepan over very low heat, melt chocolate with coffee. Remove from heat and whisk until all chocolate is melted and smooth. Set aside to cool.

Whip egg yolks in a mixer on high until thick and pale. Add sugar and continue to beat until mixture is thick and pale and ribbons run from the beater. Stir in melted chocolate.

In a clean bowl with a clean wire whisk attachment, beat egg with salt until stiff peaks form.

Stir 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Then fold in the remaining egg whites.

Pour batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until done.

Allow cake to cool for 10 minutes then run a knife around the edges to loosen the cake.

Sprinkle cake with 1 tablespoon cocoa. Lay a tea towel on top of the cake and invert onto the backside of a cookie sheet.
Sprinkle with another tablespoon of cocoa and begin to roll the cake and towel at one short end.

Allow to cool for a couple of hours.

Unroll cake. Spread with whipped cream mixture (recipe follows), sprinkle with strawberries and roll back up.

Place chocolate roll on a platter and chill for a few hours. Slice and serve!! (Or dip and serve, in my case.)

 Whipped Cream Filling

1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 8-ounce package cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar

Whip cream and powdered sugar together until stiff peaks form.

In a clean bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar together until smooth.

Combine whipped cream mixture and cream mixture together. Spread onto cake.


Whip the cream with some powdered sugar. 
In a new bowl, beat the cream cheese 
with some sugar then combine the two.




Okay....let's get rollin'...or triflein'. Get it? 
Chocolate roll...chocolate trifle? Okay..moving on.


Prepare your pan.


Melt the chocolate along with the coffee over LOW heat.


Whisk until smooth.


Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until thick and pale.


When ribbons run off the beater, you're golden.


Stir the egg yolk mixture and the melted chocolate.


Until it looks like this.


Beat the egg whites until stiff 
then fold into the chocolate mixture.


Until it looks like this!


Pour the batter into your pan and bake. 
After the cake has cooled for about 10 minutes, 
sprinkle some cocoa over the top.


Lay a towel over the cake. Then flip it onto 
an upside down cookie pan.


Remove the parchment paper and sprinkle with another 
tablespoon of cocoa. Roll it up!! Allow to cool for while.


Here's where my cake went horribly wrong. Unroll the cooled cake and hopefully it won't break like mine did. If you're lucky enough to have an whole cake, spread the whipped cream mixture on it then the strawberries. Roll it back up and place it on a platter. If yours breaks like mine did....


..make a trifle! Still delicious, just a different look!