Cake #11: Butterscotch Cream

A few months ago I bought a recipe book on a whim: Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson. I’m not usually one to purchase cook books, since I never end up using them for more than one or two recipes, but this one had enough general baking tips and enough gorgeous looking cakes in it that I felt pretty confident that it would get some use. I was right. It’s the source of the buttercream on my wildly successful Thin Mint experiment, the vanilla bit of last week’s chocolate and vanilla combo, and this latest confection in its entirety.

I’d been eying this baby since I first picked the book up. When I finally buckled down and made it, we had it two times in as many weeks. Granted, I changed things up a little the second time (patience…I will explain), but it was just good enough that I’m tempted to make it again right now. Except as soon as I got started, undoubtedly Margot would have a massive diaper blowout and Mila would start whining for a snack we don’t even have and my phone would start ringing off the hook. Because my life is awesome like that.

Don’t be daunted by this cake; it seems more challenging than it really is. It looks fancy, too, even though it’s surprisingly easy to put together.

Butterscotch Cream Roll-Up
adapted slightly from Vintage Cakes

Butterscotch Sauce
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt

Melt the butter over medium heat in a large saucepan. (DO NOT make my mistake and use a small saucepan. Your sauce will boil over and leave you with a huge sticky mess.) Dump in the brown sugar and stir to combine. Cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture begins to simmer and changes from the consistency of wet sand to a liquid that looks like taffy (approximately 3 minutes of simmering). Drizzle 1/4 cups of cream and vigorously blend it into the sugar; whisk in the remaining cream. Turn heat up to medium high and allow sauce to boil, whisking occasionally, until it has darkened (about 8 minutes). Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes before adding vanilla and salt. Refrigerate until cold.

Cake
1 cup sifted cake flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup canola oil
4 egg yolks at room temperature
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 egg whites at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 325. Grease a 12 by 16 inch jelly roll pan with baking spray. Line it with parchment paper, spray the paper, then dust it with flour and tap out any excess. (DO NOT SKIP THESE STEPS. Seriously. They will make your life so much easier down the road.)

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and 3/4 cup of sugar. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, yolks, water, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until smooth.

Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, whip egg whites at medium speed until frothy. Add cream of tartar and gradually increase speed to high, whipping until whites form soft peaks. With the mixer on medium speed, gradually add the remaining sugar. Bring the speed back up to high and whip until whites hold firm, shiny peaks.

With a rubber spatula, fold a third of the egg whites into the prepared batter, using as few strokes as possible. Add remaining whites and fold until incorporated. Pour into prepared pan and smooth the top (this is best done with an offset spatula). Bake until it springs back when lightly touched and is barely golden, 16 to 20 minutes.

Filling
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Beat the cream with 1 cup of cold butterscotch sauce until combined. Whip mixture on high until cream holds soft peaks.

To assemble:
Keeping the cake in the pan with the long side toward you, cut it with a serrated knife into fourths (each piece should be about 4 by 12 inches). Then cut through the underlying parchment paper with a pair of scissors in the same places where you cut the cake. You should then have four pieces of cake (with parchment paper underneath) that can be moved independently.

Leaving the cake in the pan, spread a bit more than half the butterscotch cream evenly over the cake and sprinkle with mini chocolate chips. (The original recipe calls for toasted almonds. Any nut or chip or whatever would work here…or you could skip this step entirely. Your call.)

Take out one of your cake pieces and, peeling away the parchment paper as you go, begin to roll it up. Place the rolled cake upright on a serving plate so the cut edge and filling is visible at the top. Lift up the next cake strip and wrap it around the first, starting where the outside edge of the first cake left off. Repeat with the other two strips so it looks like you have one continuous roll. Finish by frosting the sides with the remainder of the cream and sprinkling with nuts or chips or whatever you used in the filling. Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving. Warm up the remaining butterscotch sauce to drizzle over individual servings.

Other filling options:
Next time I make this, I’m going to try it with vanilla whipped cream and fresh berries, or even ice cream if I’m feeling brave. The second time I made it I used chocolate whipped cream filling, and it was a huge hit with the in-laws at Easter dinner. If you’d like to go that route instead of doing butterscotch, here’s my “recipe.”

In a microwave safe bowl, melt some chocolate chips by nuking them for 30 seconds, stirring, then nuking again, stirring again, etc. until melted and smooth. Let cool until barely warm to the touch. (I genuinely have no idea how much chocolate I used here, by the way. I just used up what I had left from three different bags of semi-sweet and bittersweet chips. More chocolate means more chocolate–duh–so go with what feels right to you.) With a stand mixer, whip 1 1/2 cups heavy cream until it reaches the desired consistency. Fold in melted chocolate until color is even throughout. Spread on cake as instructed above.

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