So even though I haven't been job hunting, I have still been very busy in the kitchen. I recently came back from a trip to Lille and was totally inspired by the amazing patisseries and boulangeries there. I am so jealous that people can just pop out and buy all these amazing cakes and things and still have a choice of places to go! I bought two recipes books which I am determined to try (just as soon as I find my french dictionary hehe). The books are guides to the amazing french macarons and also all things pate a choux..mmm...
Of course, having all the amazing recipes in the world doesn't necessary help when you can't decide what to bake sometimes. Particularly when you don't happen to have the ingredients for something complex. And now it's towards the end of summer in the UK, something fruity wasn't entirely feasible. I really wanted to make a strawberry mirror cake but sadly the strawberries are not that tasty right now. So anyway, I had my mum choose something random for me from Annie Bell's Gorgeous Cakes. The lucky recipe was the Chocolate Fudge Swiss Roll.
Now I've been using a lot of cocoa powder of late, and I've experimented a little with a couple of different brands. Now that I am more aware of how much difference quality ingredients can make, I am more attentive to what I put into my cakes now. Recently I have tried using Bourneville cocoa and also the delectable Green and Blacks cocoa to see if it would make much difference. It seems that my family don't much like the bitterness of the quality cocoa! Certainly I think you get a much richer chocolate flavour. Hmm I feel a chocolate orange cake urge coming on..
Anyway, I was a tiny bit tentative about making a roll again, since it seemed quite tricky the last time but as my housemate J says, practice makes perfect so I tied my apron and got to work and the results looked like this:
This picture was taken before I put it in the fridge to set. This was after I served me and my mum and piece each to savour the delicious fudge cream.. mmmmmm.. Definitely going to make this one again. And the swiss roll was much easier to roll this time!
