Swiss rolls can seem daunting, but they’re quite straight forward. Here’s an easy, tasty recipe with a couple of embellishments to lift it out of the ordinary.

Makes: 10 – 12 slices

Time: 25 min. hands-on then 12 min. baking + cooling. And 10 – 15 min. filling and finishing.

Level: Reasonably easy

Equipment: A Swiss roll tin or shallow baking tray about 33cm x 23cm (13” x 9”) A piping bag for decoration (optional)

Ingredients

50g/1¾oz icing sugar for the filling
250g/9oz mascarpone cheese (or full fat cream cheese)
½ tsp vanilla extract (optional)
75g/3oz Plain flour
A pinch of fine salt
3 medium eggs
75g/3oz white caster sugar + some more for dusting
A little red food colouring (optional)
200g/7oz of strawberry jam (About ½ a jar)
Some more icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C / Fan 180 / 400F / Gas 6. Grease or butter the tin and line with baking parchment. Sift the icing sugar into the mascarpone and add the vanilla extract (if using). Beat until smooth then set aside.

2. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and set aside.

3. In a larger bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy and the whisk leaves a trail when lifted.

4. Use a large metal spoon or sharp edged spatula to fold in the flour. Take care not to over mix.

5. (optional) Take out about 2 tbsp of the mixture and stir in a small amount of red food colouring. Spoon it into a piping bag and snip a small hole in the end (or use a small, patterned nozzle). Pipe blobs or stripes or whatever you fancy onto the lined tray.

6. Spoon or gently pour the mixture into the tin and level the surface.

7. Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, until well risen, golden brown and firm, but springy to the touch.

8. While the roll is baking, place a large sheet of parchment or a damp tea towel on your work surface. (If using parchment, dab a small spot of water under each corner to keep it in position.) Sprinkle over some more sugar. This will ensure the baked roll will not stick.

9. Once baked, turn the roll out onto the sugared parchment/tea towel and carefully ease off the paper it was baked with.

N.B. If you have piped red blobs you will need to invert the roll, otherwise they will be on the inside, unseen. Unfortunately this will necessitate two sheets of sugared parchment/tea towels.

10. If necessary trim the edges with a sharp knife then make a light score mark about 2.5cm/1 inch in from one of the short sides. This will help when you roll it.

11. Use the sugar covered parchment paper/tea towel to roll the cake from the cut short end. Leave it to cool.

12. When it’s cool, gently open it out and remove the parchment/tea towel. Now you can spoon on the mascarpone mixture, followed by the jam, or you could combine them first and spoon them on together.

13. Re-roll the cake and place in the fridge for 20 minutes. Before serving trim the ends and dust the roll with a little icing sugar.

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Meanwhile, here are a three different bakes I’d love you to try.

Chocolate and Orange Marbled Ring Cake