Pumpkin it up with a jelly roll cake
Perhaps the most famous holiday cake is the Yule log, which gets trotted out every holiday season. There’s much to be said for this classic, but we wanted to develop a unique variation with a pumpkin jelly roll cake encasing a simple filling.
We initially thought incorporating pumpkin purée into a flexible sponge cake recipe would weigh down the batter but, happily, we were wrong. Each additional 1/4 cup of purée we introduced improved the cake’s flavour, gave it a moist texture, and made it more flexible.
Cream cheese frosting seemed like a natural filling, but it made our cake too dense to roll. We tweaked the ingredient proportions to lighten the texture and then considered whether or not the order in which the ingredients
were being mixed together mattered.
The answer was yes: the batches in which the butter was blended with the sugar before we added the cream cheese were far lighter, making it the perfect filling for this festive cake.
Pumpkin Roll
Makes 8 to 10 servings
Cake
1 cup (4 ounces) cake flour, sifted
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice tsp baking soda tsp salt
5 large eggs
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
1 cup canned unsweetened pumpkin purée
Filling
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened but still cool
2 cups (8 ounces) confectioners’ sugar
8 ounces cream cheese, cut into 4 pieces and softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 Spiced Pecans (recipe follows) Confectioners’ sugar
Start to finish: three hours
For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 F. Grease 18-by-13-inch rimmed baking sheet, line with parchment paper, and grease parchment. Whisk flour, pie spice, baking soda, and salt together in bowl; set aside. Using stand mixer fitted with paddle, beat eggs and sugar on mediumhigh speed until pale yellow and thick, six to 10 minutes. Add pumpkin, reduce speed to low, and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds. Fold in flour mixture until combined. Transfer batter to prepared sheet and spread into even layer. Bake until cake is firm and springs back when touched, about 15 minutes. Lay clean sheet of parchment on counter and dust with confectioners’ sugar.
Immediately run thin knife around edge of baking sheet to loosen cake, then flip hot cake out onto prepared parchment sheet, discarding parchment
attached to cake. Starting from short side, roll cake and bottom parchment snugly into log. Let cake cool, seam side down, for one hour.
For the filling: Using a clean, dry bowl and paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about two minutes. Add cream cheese, one piece at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition, about one minute. Add vanilla and mix until no lumps remain, about 30 seconds.
Gently unroll cake. Spread filling evenly over cake, leaving 1-inch border along edges. Reroll cake gently but snugly around filling, leaving parchment behind as you roll. Wrap cake firmly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour or up to two days.
Trim ends of cake, transfer cake to platter, dust with confectioners’ sugar, and garnish with spiced pecans. Serve. (Cake can be wrapped loosely in plastic and kept at room temperature for up to eight hours before serving.)
Per serving: 453 calories (40 per cent from fat); 20 grams fat (11 g saturated; 1 g trans fats); 157 milligrams cholesterol; 182 mg sodium; 64 g carbohydrate; 1 g fibre; 50 g sugar; 6 g protein.