Chocolate Swiss Roll

I love the rich chocolate flavour of this sponge roll and it's texture is so light and airy that it just melts into your mouth. This is one roll which I come back to again and again as it is one of my favourite recipes and I love to fill it with different fillings, depending upon my mood and the general availability of ingredients in my pantry. It makes for simple yet, if properly decked up, fancy dessert and whats more, you can make it days ahead (like 5 days or so) and keep it in refrigerator, so that you will have a perfect dessert for a dinner/lunch party without the additional stress.

I have already shared my vanilla sponge roll recipe here and how I decked it up here. I used this chocolate roll as a base and zanzied it up for my brother's birthday but that story's for another day.

The recipe is adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "Cake Bible", and it's a beautiful sponge with most basic ingredients. The tricky part is to make a sponge with good volume, as we are not using any leavning agents in this recipe.  The best way is to beat egg yolks and whites, separately, to full volumes and then incorporate the whites into the yolks without deflating them. If you've perfected this technique, you will produce perfect sponge cakes without fail. 

This roulade does not contain flour, and hence makes for a very light and moist cake. But the absence of flour also makes it fragile and it will crack while rolling around the filling. 

Chocolate Swiss Roll
Adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cake Bible
Ingredients: 
6 large eggs, separated (I used 8 medium sized eggs) 
120 grams semisweet chocolate, chopped
50 grams (1/4 cup) + 2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (I used white vinegar, you can also use a pinch of salt) 

Whipped Cream: 
240 ml (1 cup) whipping cream (I used low fat Amul cream)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
15 grams (1 tablespoon) icing sugar (you can use more)

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius and place rack in the center of the oven. Butter a 17x12 sheet pan. Line the pan with parchment paper and then butter and flour the paper.
Melt the chocolate in a stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water (you can also melt the chocolate in the microwave). Let cool to room temperature.
In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, place the egg yolks and 1/4 cup (50 grams) of sugar and beat, on high speed, until the mixture is thick, light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the melted chocolate and beat only to combine. Set aside.
In a clean bowl, with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites  until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and beat at medium-high speed until soft peaks form. gradually beat in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold a small amount of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture using a rubber spatula or whisk to lighten the batter. Fold in the remaining whites until just incorporated. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan with the back of a spoon or an offset spatula. Bake until the cake is puffed, has lost its shine and springs back when gently pressed, about 15-17 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Cover the cake with a clean, slightly damp towel.

Meanwhile make your whipped cream. Place all teh ingredients in a bowl and beat until soft peaks form.
Once the cake has cooled, spread the whipped cream and gently roll the cake, peeling off the parchment paper as you roll. Can be covered and stored in the refrigerator for upto five days.