Peach Swiss Roll

A co-worker brought a big bag of peaches from her tree to work.  Over a week later, several were still in the fridge.  I hate to see food go to waste, and brought them home to bake with.  A later recipe went back to work as a treat for the crew.  This one was small, so I kept it for myself.

Eggs are expensive, so when I saw that my jelly roll recipe uses four, I looked for a way to cut it down.  The toaster oven's broiler pan is about the right size for a quarter recipe, and I just prayed this would work.

There was a lot of math involved in cutting it down.  Square inches in the small tray versus my half-sheet pan, then one quarter of 2/3 C of sugar.  Fortunately, I have a magnet with conversion tables on my fridge. I'm not going to torture you with that and will post the full recipe for a standard jelly roll or cookie sheet.

Part of me wanted to bake the cake in the toaster oven, but the element is slightly burned out on one side and the cake wouldn't have baked evenly.  So I put the Easy-Bake Oven sized cake in the full oven and watched it carefully.  By the way, I loved my Easy-Bake.  I begged for it for two years until Papa Smurf decided I was old enough not to burn myself, then used it for several years, until I was up to using the real oven.  I still have a couple of little pieces from the icing decoration set.

Cake

3/4 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs, separated, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 C sugar
powdered sugar for dusting

1.  Preheat oven to 375º.  Grease a baking sheet or jelly roll pan with shortening, line with wax paper, and grease the paper.

2.  Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.  In a separate bowl, whip egg whites to soft peaks, add 1/3 C of the sugar, and whip to stiff peaks.  This was nice to do in a very small bowl with the hand beater's whisk attachment.  I have to remember that for the future.

3.  In a third bowl, beat egg yolks until light.  That was very hard to do with one yolk.  Add remaining sugar and the extract and beat until combined and it doesn't try to separate when you stop beating.

4.  Gently stir flour into egg yolk mixture until mostly combined.  Fold in egg whites, trying not to deflate the mixture.  Spread evenly in prepared pan, getting into the corners.

5.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until top is set and springy.  While the cake is in the oven, dust a clean tea towel with powdered sugar.  As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, invert onto towel.  Just commit to the flip and worry about centering it after.  Any patterns on the sheet or pan will end up on the inside of the cake.  Carefully remove wax paper.

6.  Roll up cake with the towel serving as the "filling", starting with the shorter side for dessert-sized servings or the long side for tea servings.  Allow to cool that way before filling, and it won't crack when finished.

Filling and Assembly

1-1/2 C whipping cream
1/4 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
*3 large peaches

1.  Whip cream to firm peaks, adding powdered sugar and vanilla at the soft peak stage.  Again, that happened so fast in the small bowl that I almost turned it into butter.  Maybe two minutes.  I have to remember that hack for next time.

2.  Pit peaches and slice thinly.  Peeling optional.  Reserve several slices for garnish.

3.  Unroll cake and just leave it on the towel, which needs a wash anyway.  If desired, trim the outer edges for a cleaner look.

4.  Spread the whipped cream over the entire cake surface, but go easy on the last inch in case things start to squish out.  Reserve a tablespoon or two of cream for decoration.  Top cream with peach slices.  Reroll and place, seam-side down, on serving platter.  Add a dollop of whipped cream wherever you want a decorative slice of peach to stick and garnish.  If desired, dust with more powdered sugar.  Chill until ready to serve.

Makes one cake, 12-16 servings

Difficulty rating  :)