Blush Orange Swiss Roll

I’m home for Chinese New Year, and I wasn’t planning on baking anything but then I saw this bad boy.

My mum has gone and bought a KitchenAid. I am sooo jealous but at the same time even more determined to save up the money to buy my own. Especially after using it, my god, it whisked like a dream. I wanted to bake something that involved whisking to see if using a really expensive piece of equipment really makes that much of a difference to the amount of air you can fold into a fatless sponge. Well do you know what, it bloody well does. Not to say that you can’t make Swiss Rolls without a KitchenAid- but they are lovely and light if you do.

Also thought I’d make a little twist on a normal lemon or strawberry Swiss Roll by taking advantage of the Blush Oranges in season right now. They’re bright red inside which makes me happy because as you know I’m a bit of a magpie.

Ingredients

3 eggs

4oz caster sugar

4oz plain flour

Zest of blush orange

For Icing

7oz icing sugar

4oz butter

4oz orange curd

2tsp blush orange juice

Preheat the oven to 200⁰C. Line a Swiss Roll tin with baking parchment.

Add the eggs, sugar and zest to a heat-proof bowl and place over a gently simmering pan of water.

Whisk using a hand-held whisk until the mixture becomes pale and frothy.

Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk for a further 5 minutes. This is where my mum’s beautiful new KitchenAid came into play! I poured the lightly whisked egg mixture into the machine and popped it onto speed ‘8’ and let it do its magic for 5 minutes. I was so impressed by how much they fluffed up; I’ve definitely never been able to do that with a hand-held before.

After this sift in about half of the flour and very gently fold into the egg mixture using a large, metal spoon.

Fold in the rest of the flour, trying not to beat out too much of the air.

Pour into the tin and gently even up with a spatula.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown and firm to the touch.

While it’s in the oven, get a tea towel and place a large piece of baking parchment on top of it. Dust this liberally with more caster sugar.

When the roll is baked, quickly turn it out onto the sugared paper and peel off the bottom layer of parchment.

Trim the crusty edges along the two longer sides, and make an indentation about an inch in from one of the shorter edges.

Quickly, while it’s still warm, roll it tightly from the scored edge, wrapping the sugared paper and tea towel inside. Place on a wire rack and leave to completely cool like this.

When the roll is ready, make the icing by creaming the butter and icing sugar together. Add the blood orange juice and beat it in completely. Have a taste and if you want it to be more orangey, add some more juice, a little at a time, followed by a spoonful of icing sugar to balance.

Carefully unfurl the roll. Recipes I read said to spread the icing and then the curd on top. I did this and to be honest it didn’t make much sense so I’d suggest doing it the other way around. Either way spread the icing and curd evenly all over the roll.

Starting from the scored edge, tightly roll the sponge up, peeling off the sugared paper as you go. Place onto a pretty plate and then go nuts! Fatless sponges like these tend to be best on the day you make them. And obviously taste best with a cup of tea.