Gluten-free Pumpkin Swiss Roll
Packed full of autumnal flavours, this lightly spiced Swiss Roll will fast become a seasonal favourite in your household! You can used tinned pumpkin puree or roast the pumpkin yourself, we'll show you how below. Small sugar pumpkins or butternut squashes are more flavourful than the big pumpkins you carve for Halloween. (‘Butternut Squash! But that that’s not pumpkin!’ This is true, but we promise you no-one will know, and you can keep your small pretty pumpkins as decorations!)
If you are roasting your own pumpkin or squash, follow these instructions first.
You will need just 200g pumpkin puree for the Swiss Roll. A vegetable weighing around 1.3kg will yield about 600g puree, so you are likely to have some puree left over. (It freezes well and makes a lovely soup.)
Ingredients:
one pumpkin or squash
Equipment:
Tala Performance Stainless Steel Spoon
- Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds.
- Place the halves in roasting tin and bake for about an hour and 15 minutes until soft all the way through. Turn the pieces once during the baking time.
- Scoop out the flesh and puree in a food processor. Allow to cool.
Making the Swiss Roll
Ingredients
For the swiss roll:
120g gluten-free self-raising flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
4 eggs
120g soft light brown sugar
200g pumpkin puree
Icing sugar (for dusting)
For the filling:
4 medium egg whites
180g soft light brown sugar
250g salted butter, softened
To decorate:
½ tbs caster sugar mixed with ½ tsp cinnamon
Equipment
Tala Performance non-stick baking tray (39.5x27x2cm)
Tala Siliconised Baking Sheets (cut to the same size as the bottom of the tray)
Tala Stoneware Dusty Pink Mixing Bowl
hand-held electric mixer
Tea towel
Tala Performance Stainless Steel Knife
Tala Performance Classic 16cm Saucepan
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius fan (320 degrees Fahrenheit fan).
- In a medium size mixing bowl, whisk eggs and sugar until pale and foamy, this takes just a few minutes. (I find it easiest to use a hand-held electric mixer for this task.)
- Sprinkle over the dry ingredients (flour, bicarb and spices) and whisk briefly by hand to combine.
- Gently fold in the pumpkin puree.
- Place the baking paper inside the baking tray and pour over the cake mixture. Spread it out evenly with a mini palette knife.
- Bake for 15 minutes until evenly risen and golden.
- While the cake is baking, spread a clean tea towel on the work top (orient so that it is ‘portrait’ rather than ‘landscape’, and dust with icing sugar.
- When the cake is done. Remove from the oven and gently run the knife around the edge of the tray to loosen the cake from the sides.
- Align the cake tin with the bottom short side of the tea towel and flip the tin over. The cake should fall out onto the tea towel.
- Pick up the cake and tea towel at the shortest edge, closest to you and roll up both together like a spiral, until the cake is completely rolled up and covered. Leave the cake to cool inside the tea towel. (This takes a couple of hours, but you can touch the cake through the tea towel to see how it is doing.)
- To make the filling, place the egg whites and brown sugar in the heat-proof bowl and place over a saucepan filled with boiling water.
- Heat gently, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon for about five minutes until the sugar crystals are no longer making the mixture grainy. Do not allow the mixture to cook. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for five minutes.
- Whisk with an electric mixer until the mixture stands in stiff peaks, like meringue. Add the softened butter bit by bit, whisking between each addition. If the mixture is still too warm, chill until it reaches a spreadable consistency.
- Unroll the cooled cake and spread the filling all over the surface. Roll up again, this time without the tea towel, and chill for a few minutes.
- In the small bowl, mix the sugar and cinnamon, then sift across the top of the Swiss Roll before cutting into slices and serving!