Chocolate Mocha Roll

Chocolate Mocha Roll

Christmas holidays!  In my family this is synonymous with food and booze.  It's January 3 and I now weigh the most I ever have in my entire life, which is not awesome because my clothes are way tighter than desired.  How does this always happen?!  Argh - why do I love food so much?!  I need a quick fix, which is why I am kickstarting my weight loss regime with a January of no alcohol.  Can this be done?  Not sure...it's never been attempted by me before, but we are two days in and so far so good.

But for some context on how I got to this state - for Christmas dinner this year on my family's side, my contribution was dessert.  I made two different desserts.  I was only going to make one, a White Chocolate Cranberry Cheesecake, but then my mom reminded me that my brother doesn't really like cheesecake ever since that 'bad cheesecake that he tried when he was a kid.'  I already had my heart set on the cheesecake, so instead of changing course I decided to add a second dessert, my mom's Mocha Chocolate Roll.  Because why not - two desserts are better than one dessert anyway.

Christmas dinner on my side of the family...
the only people missing from the photoare me and my 16-month old friend Natalie

This Mocha Chocolate Roll is something that my mom has made a few times for holiday desserts in the past, and man is it ever good.  It's even got (optional) Kahlua in it - woo hoo!  The mocha whipped cream is very, very tasty.  My friend Kristy tried to get me to make this dessert actually look like a log, and I got as far as Googling pictures of cake logs, but realized that it would deffffffinitely require some sort of creative ability that I don't have, so I settled for toasted almonds and chocolate shavings instead.  This cake looks very cool when cut into slices, because you get to see the swirls...see:

 

  

One Year Ago:  Egg Nog Punch
Two Years Ago:  Meyer Lemon Chicken Piccata

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Chocolate Mocha Roll

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
• 1 tablespoon boiling water
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 1/3 cup icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons Kahlua (optional)
• Chocolate shavings, for garnish 
• Slivered almonds, toasted, for garnish (optional)

Directions
Line a 15 x 11-inch jelly roll pan with foil, then grease the foil and the sides of the pan well.  Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and place into two different large bowls.  Beat the egg yolks with a 1/2 cup of the sugar until light and fluffy, a couple of minutes, before blending in the vanilla.  Add the flour and all but 2 tablespoons of the cocoa powder, and beat until mixed.  Wash and dry your beaters, then in the second bowl beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.  Add the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.  Fold into the chocolate batter.  Pour your mix into the prepared jelly roll pan.



Bake for 25 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.  Remove from oven and loosen the cake from around the edges of the pan.  Sprinkle the cake with the remaining 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder.

Cover the cake with a tea towel that you don't care much about, preferably a dark one, because it's going to get dirty from the cocoa powder.  Cover the cake (which is already covered with a tea towel) with an inverted baking sheet, then flip the cake over and gently remove the foil and the jelly roll pan.  If there are any overly crusty edges, you should trim those off now.



While the cake is still hot, roll it up with the towel, and let cool.



If you are wanting to make this cake ahead for your big dinner, the cake can be frozen at this point (wrap it in foil after rolling up).  A few hours before your meal, remove the cake from the fridge or the freezer.  If frozen, thaw completely.

In a small bowl, dissolve the instant coffee granules in the boiling water and let cool.  In a bowl, beat together whipping cream and icing sugar until stiff peaks form.  Blend in the coffee and the Kahlua until evenly distributed.

Unroll the cake and remove the tea towel.



Spread the cake with 2/3 of the whipping cream mixture.



Roll up the cake, without the towel.  Place onto your serving dish, seam side down.



Spread the remaining whipping cream mixture all over the cake,

Garnish with the shaved chocolate and toasted almonds.  Put back into your fridge until ready to serve.  Oh, and if you don't know how to make shaved chocolate, what I did was took a vegetable peeler and scraped it along a piece of chocolate, which created thin pretty curls perfect for garnishing with.

Enjoy!

Recipe Source: My mom!