Sakura Hello Kitty Strawberries and Cream Swiss Roll

After my successful attempts with chiffon, I felt ready to take on swiss rolls! Another bake that I was intimidated by because of the many steps involved and the horror stories about cracked rolls while rolling. After watching Ochikeron's very helpful video tutorial a few times, I made my first swiss roll! A patterned one at that. Here's my Sakura Hello Kitty swiss roll!

As it was my first attempt, I followed Ochikeron's recipe very closely and only substituted cornflour with cream of tartar as the egg white stabilizer. Whenever fruit liquor was mentioned in the recipe, I used strawberry essence. I didn't have a 10x10" square tin so I rummaged through the trays that I have at home and baked the cake in an 8.5 x 11" aluminum tray.

I was really pleased to see the patterns turn out nicely!

As my tray had rounded corners, I had to cut off some portions of the cake before applying the cream and laying out the strawberries. This view looks really appetizing!

I was really nervous about rolling the cake, praying hard that it doesn't crack. So glad that it didn't!

Having to wait patiently for the cream to set was pretty hard as I was really eager to see the results of my labor. I waited for an hour and couldn't wait anymore. In my haste to see the cross-section of the cake, Hello Kitty's face got smeared with cream :P.

The cake is very, very soft and melts in your mouth! I will definitely use this recipe again if I plan to do swiss rolls.... maybe not in the near future as it is a rather time-consuming bake.

If you do try this out I am sure you will have as much satisfaction from it as I did :).

With love,
Phay Shing