Lemon and Summer Fruits Swiss Roll
This is a beautiful summery showstopper of a cake that doesn’t take long to put together, but which is sure to impress. We have used frozen summer fruits to flavour the Swiss meringue buttercream inside. You can use fresh or frozen fruits of your choice. Decorate with fresh fruit, edible flowers and herbs.
Making the Swiss Roll
Ingredients
For the Swiss roll:
4 eggs
120g caster sugar
2 tbs sunflower oil
150g self-raising flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp salt
Zest one lemon
Extra caster sugar for dusting
For the filling:
100g frozen summer fruits
2 tbs caster sugar
2 tbs water
4 medium egg whites
180g caster sugar
250g salted butter, softened
To decorate:
Extra caster sugar
Fresh fruit
Fresh herbs (optional – I used mint leaves)
Equipment
Tala Performance non-stick baking tray (39.5x27x2cm)
Hand-held electric mixer
Tea towel
Tala Performance Stainless Steel Set of 4 Knives
Tala Performance 16cm Saucepan with Glass Lid
Tala Performance 20cm Saucepan
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius fan (320 degrees Fahrenheit fan).
- In a medium size mixing bowl, whisk eggs and sugar, then add sunflower oil and whisk again.
- Add the flour, bicarb and salt and whisk again briefly until smooth.
- 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 (place it so that it is ‘portrait’ rather than ‘landscape’, and dust with caster 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.
- Leaving the baking paper on the cake, 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.)
While the cake is cooling, you can get started on the Swiss meringue buttercream filling.
- Put the frozen summer fruits, sugar and water in small saucepan and heat until gently bubbling.
- Allow to cook for a couple of minutes, then turn off the heat and mash with the potato masher.
- Sieve the contents into a bowl, pushing as much of the fruit through the sieve as you can.
- Discard the pippy, pulpy detritus left in the sieve and leave the fruity syrup to cool.
- To make the Swiss meringue buttercream, place the egg whites and caster sugar in the heat-proof bowl and place over a saucepan filled with gently 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 20 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.
- Add the summer fruit syrup to the Swiss meringue buttercream and beat until pale pink and smooth.
- Unroll the cooled cake, pull away the baking paper and spread the filling all over the surface of the cake. Roll up again, this time without the tea towel, and chill for a few minutes.
- Sprinkle more caster sugar over the top, decorate with fruit and edible flowers and herbs (if you are using them) and serve.
- Store leftovers in the fridge and bring to room temperature before enjoying!