- Remove dairy-free spread from the fridge several hours before you wish to
cook so that it is soft enough to use for the icing. If you have forgotten,
heat the desired quantity in the microwave for a few seconds.
- Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 7 / 220°C / 400°F
- Grease a swiss roll tin with a little flavourless vegetable oil and
line it with greaseproof paper. Grease the paper lightly.
- Sieve the flour and cocoa powder together.
- Put the sugar in a pyrex glass dish and heat it in the oven for about 2
minutes.
- Meanwhile, break the eggs into a large mixing bowl and beat with mixer on
high speed.
- Add the hot sugar while the mixer is still going and beat the mixture until
it has doubled in size and is pale and fluffy.
- Gently fold in the flour/cocoa mixture using a metal spatula or
spoon.
- Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin and spread it out gently
until it is evenly distributed.
- Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 8 minutes. Do not open the
oven in less than 7 minutes. When you do open the door do so gently and keep it
open only wide enough to reach in without burning yourself, test the cake
lightly with your fingertips and, if it is not quite ready, shut the door as
gently as possible. When it is ready the cake should just be very slightly
springy to the touch and should be just starting to come away from the sides.
- While the cake is in the oven, you need to clear yourself a patch of
table/worktop for the rolling process. You also need to make up the icing.
- Put the softened spread in a large mixing bowl and either beat it with a
wooden spoon or with an electric mixer on medium speed until the spread is
light and fluffy. Gradually add the icing sugar. I add a small amount of
rice milk at this stage to start the icing sugar off, but you don't have to.
With the hand mixer on slow, blend the ingredients together, adding the
rice milk a little at a time until the consistency is right. Icing is a tricky
creature to get to grips with. No matter how carefully I measure things out it
always comes down to adding a bit more sugar and then a bit more rice milk
until I have the consistency I want, so be prepared to fiddle around with this
stage.
- When the icing is smoothly blended, put about a third of it into a second mixing bowl. This will form the filling for the log. You want it a little softer than you would for icing to coat a cake, so add a little more rice milk at this stage. Aim for a consistency that will stretch smoothly off a spoon when you lift up a dollop. If you have this too thick, it will never spread over your swiss roll and you will tear up the surface of the cake as you attempt to cover it.
- The remaining two thirds of the icing is for the outside, so you need to add the cocoa powder to it. Remember that the more you beat it from the moment you add the cocoa, the paler it will go. To avoid having a pale beige log, add a little rice milk to the mixture before you add the cocoa. When the milk is blended in and the mixture has softened just a bit, start adding the cocoa. Keep adding cocoa until the icing is the colour you would like and beat it just enough to make the colour even throughout.
- When the cake is ready to come out of the oven, spread out the old newspaper, full thickness, on the table. On top of that, lay a sheet of greaseproof paper which is about 8" / 20cm longer than your swiss roll tin and at least as wide as it. Sprinkle a light dusting of flour over the greaseproof paper when you have spread it out. Put the cake still in its tin onto the cooling rack and leave to cool for about 5 minutes.
- This is the first tricky bit. You need to put the cake upside down onto the
greaseproof paper. You also want to position it so that at least 4" / 10cm of
one of the narrow ends of the greaseproof is left free: you're going to need
to hold on to this bit. It sounds impossible, but I've never yet managed to
drop one even though I keep thinking I'm going to!
- While you are congratulating yourself on achieving this feat, lift off the tin, carefully peel of the greaseproof paper from the bottom of the cake and allow it to cool for a couple of minutes. You do not want the cake to be completely cool before the next bit as it rolls more easily while it is still slightly flexible.
- Trim a sliver of cake off each of the long sides (this is to remove any
crispy bits which make rolling the cake a real challenge) and put on the
filling icing. I use a knife dipped in a mug of hot water for this. Put small
dollops of icing all over the cake and spread them out very gently. If
you are rough with this stage you will end up with a ploughed field effect, so
take care. Beware of being over-generous with the icing or the cake won't
roll: try to keep to a limit of about ¼" / 5mm.
- Have the bowl containing the covering icing within easy reach of where you are going to roll the cake, along with a knife and a fork standing in a mug of hot water. You will also need to have the cake board ready.
- Now for the second tricky bit. You need to have faith with this. Line up
the cake so that the narrow end with the extra greaseproof paper is facing you.
Gently ease up the end of the cake closest to you and crease it in to start the
roll. Next catch hold of the end of the greaseproof paper closest to you. You
will need to scrunch the paper up in your hands a bit to keep some tension on
the cake. Keeping both of your hands moving at the same speed, slowly but
steadily tow the paper over the cake away from you. The cake should roll up
like magic.
- If disaster strikes and it cracks or splits, don't panic, just hold it
together on the paper with one hand (and forearm sometimes!) and with the other
hand use the greaseproof paper as a sling to lift the cake onto its board. Keep
hold of the cake and use the covering icing to "glue" it together! Incredibly,
you can end up with a respectable log even after an apparent disaster.
- When you have the cake covered in icing, make sure that you have sealed it
to the board as this ensures that the cake will stay fresh over the Christmas
period. Using the heated fork, make bark patterns along the log, not forgetting
to include the occasional "knot" in the decoration.
This recipe works just as well with 81% Stone Ground self-raising flour, but
you need to add a mountainously heaped teaspoon of baking powder to the
flour/cocoa mixture to make it rise and a tablespoon of water to the eggs to
compensate for the extra absorbency of the flour.
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