If you were to count my chocolate cookbooks (why do I always seem to be counting my cookbooks?), you would find that I have ten of them. Ten cookbooks devoted to chocolate. That is how much I love chocolate. And I have five more on my Amazon wishlist. Why? What is wrong with me? I shall tell you: Nothing, you fool. Why wouldn’t I want ten chocolate cookbooks? Chocolate is amazing. And after making this recipe from Willie’s Chocolate Bible, I shall be buying the book to add to my collection.
Chocolate roulade is a difficult beast. In some ways, it is so easy. Melt some chocolate, whisk the egg yolks and sugar, whisk the egg whites, mix it together, tada! But in one (fairly important) way, it is really hard. Rolling. It. Up. Gah. In the past I have been too scared to bend it too much and ended up not rolling it tight enough. This time I decided I didn’t care if it broke (obviously I cared loads, but I was pretending) and rolled it up tightly and it was much better! Look how pretty. I made that! Have a go 🙂 Here it is before I sliced it:
Chocolate roulade
Barely adapted from Willie’s Chocolate Bible by Willie Harcourt-Cooze
Serves 8-12
250g dark chocolate (I used 72% but it was very, very dark, you could easily get away with 50%)
6 eggs, separated
130g caster (superfine) sugar
300ml double cream
grated chocolate and icing sugar, for decoration
Preheat the oven to 170C (340F)/160C (320F) fan oven. Lightly grease and line a 33cm x 23cm swiss roll tin, making sure the baking paper is pressed firmly into the base and corners.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, stirring every so often. Once the chocolate is smooth, remove from the heat and set aside.
Using an electric hand held whisk, beat the egg yolks with the sugar in a large bowl until pale and very thick. This takes a couple of minutes. The mixture should fall in a thick ribbon when you remove the (turned off!) whisk from the mixture. Gently stir in the cooled chocolate until well blended, scraping any unmixed bits from the base and sides of the bowl.
Give the whisks a rinse and dry well. In another large bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks begin to form. Stir a large spoonful of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen it up, then fold in the rest of the egg whites in stages, until evenly combined.
Pour the mixture into the swiss roll tin and gently level the top. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes (mine took 16 minutes in a 160C fan oven), until firm to touch.
Remove from the oven. Gently slide the cake, baking paper side down, onto a wire rack. Cover with a clean, damp tea towel and leave to cool completely.
When the cake is cool, lay a large piece of baking paper on a work surface and dust it with icing sugar. You now need to carefully turn the cake onto the icing sugar dusted baking paper. I did this by picking up the wire rack and holding the baking paper with my thumbs (as the cake is stuck to the baking paper) and then quickly turning it over onto the baking paper (I kind of threw it, but it survived!). Just do it quickly, if you faff it’ll probably fall on the floor and then you’ll be sad. Remove the old baking paper, which should now be on the top.
Whip the double cream until soft peaks begin to form. Spread it over the cake, leaving about a 1cm border. Using the baking paper to help you, roll the cake tightly but gently, starting at one of the shorter edges. I did this by firmly folding over the edge, then lifting the baking paper vertically to force the cake to roll over on itself. Help it along and tighten it as you go. Roll it onto a plate and breathe a sigh of relief. You made roulade! Grate some chocolate over it and dust with icing sugar, if you like. Or just stick your face in it. Whichever.
Cafe Lula 
I love roulades! They’re the perfect fall/winter dessert.
You can never have too many chocolate cookbooks! Even in books that aren’t dedicated to chocolate I always head to the back to check out the desserts section 🙂 Your roulade looks lovely – we often have it at Christmas as an alternative to Christmas cake, iced and dusted with icing sugar to look like snow.
Oh my goodness – that is a beautiful sight! Thanks for sharing another fab recipe!
This would bring a smile to any chocoholics face! Lovely presentation and sinfully rich and decadent-what’s not to like. yum!
I’m with thelittleloaf – there’s NO such thing as too many chocolate cookbooks!
ooh this roulade is just killing me! It’s so beautiful! and so chocolatey … I would definitely love to stick my face in THAT!
Now I cannot say for SURE because I haven’t personally tried it, but I saw on someone’s blog that the trick to rolling up cakes like this is to roll the cake up in a clean towel while it’s still hot. Then after it cools unroll it, add the filling and roll it back up. The cake will “remember” the rolled shape it cooled in. Perhaps I’ll have to try that little trick with YOUR roulade.
Keep the chocolate coming!! This looks delicious!
Gorgeous! I know they’re a bear to make–my mother used to make one every year and it required a lot of frosting to cover up all the cracks. I could hardly wait until it was done!
This looks like pure heaven!! I am ashamed to say I think I only have 1 chocolate cook book. I could probably live on chocolate alone, and mainly make only chocolate desserts – but my cookbooks are lacking 😦
LOL Why do you count your cookbooks! That looks gorgeous! I like that it is all chocolate – phew what a chocolate fix!
Yum! This looks simply delish!
I jealous of all of those chocolate cookbooks! I only have one, I can’t even believe it! Great looking roulade, those are pretty tricky to make, mine always want to crack.
Nice post thanks for shaaring