Saint Valentine's Day 2023

 I had a hard time deciding what to make for St Valentine's Day this year. I'm eager to decorate a layer cake, but we were in Vermont over the weekend and the beginning of the week was busy.  Ultimately I decided to make a roll cake. I love making roll cakes because they are easy and always make an impression. I used this recipe from King Arthur Baking for a chocolate roll cake with chocolate whipped cream filling. I decided to forego the chocolate glaze on top in the interest of cutting back a bit on sugar, and on time. I'm sure it would have elevated the cake, but it was good without it too. So for this recipe, the baking time is 10-12 minutes and although at 10 minutes a toothpick inserted in the center came out clean, the cake wasn't springing back to the touch the way I expected. I left it in the oven for 12 minutes plus one minute more with the oven turned off. I should have taken it out at 10-11 minutes, because it's a bit of a thicker sponge and it did taste a tad dry to me, though I don't think anyone else could tell.  When filling the cake, I spread the sponge very lightly with strawberry jam.  I won't do this again, because it added sugar and you couldn't taste the jam at all. Originally I'd wanted to put strawberries in the filling, but the price of organic strawberries is through the roof this year. Instead I bought a small tray of raspberries and served those on the side.  For decor I made a fondant heart and piped a couple dollops of whipped cream and topped those with a raspberry each.  I thought it looked very pretty on my blue cake stand, and my family liked it very much. 






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