Earl grey tea roulade

Lately, I've been bookmarking alot of cake recipes. It's nothing new, I do it all the time, but it's interesting to note that while I had been bookmarking mostly entremet recipes mainly, lately, my attention has been diverted to the simpler roll cakes and chiffon cakes. I've never been a fan of both genre of cakes in general, and I'm actually surprised at the direction my attention span has landed in.

Earl grey tea roulade

As I've never been a fan of such cakes, it naturally means I've not had any experience baking these cakes. I've actually tried my hand at baking chiffon cakes before, but I've never baked a roll cake ever. I've read before that roll cakes can be quite tricky - the cake base might be too dry and the cake might crack when you roll it, or that you overload your cake with too much cream and the filling oozes out of the cake and so on and forth.

I've been bookmarking alot of my friend Evan's recipes cos they all look so gorgeous and light and I decided to try my hand at making one.

While my cake didn't crack, I think I was underbaked my cake a bit (fear of it drying out in the oven as I tend to overbake my thin cake layers for my entremets). And I overwhipped the filling mixture slightly. I swear first times are always disastrous. The cake turned out a bit too wet for my liking (too much moisture). But I like that the filling was not buttery. I think one primary reason I avoid the local bakeries swiss rolls is that I hate the buttery filling crammed inside the cakes. I'm not a big buttercream fan, so naturally, I avoid them as such. My dad loves swiss rolls though, especially coffee flavoured ones, so perhaps in future, I'll attempt making a coffee flavoured roulade.

I'm tempted to try out another recipe for roulades soon, but it's hard to decide which flavour I should make. Coffee? Or something else? Or should I try baking more chiffon cakes? I like that these two kinds of cakes are easy and doesn't involve many complicated steps. Sometimes, simplicity is really the best. :)

Earl grey tea roulade (adapted from Evan at Evan's Kitchen Ramblings)
3 eggs, room temp
65g caster sugar
2 tbsp milk
45g cake flour, sifted
10g ground tea leaves
120ml whipping cream
50ml condensed milk
1/4 tsp vanilla paste
Place eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl over a pan of hot water and whisk until the mixture reaches body temperature (abt 37C).
Remove the pan of hot water and continue whisking mixture until ribbon stage.
Fold in milk, flour and tea leaves and mix well to combine.
Pour mixture into an 11" jelly roll pan/shallow baking tin lined with greased baking paper and bake in a preheated oven of 190C for abt 10-15 mins or until golden.
Leave to cool for a bit before peeling off baking paper carefully. Immediately place onto clean tea towel, roll up and leave to cool down completely.
To make the filling, whisk whipping cream, condensed milk and vanilla paste together until stiff peaks. Spread mixture on cake, leaving a small border space around the filling. Roll the cake up.
Refrigerate or freeze until firm before slicing.