Recipe: Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Ice Cream

October 9, 2016

yassss

I did it – and I didn’t even take any photos (ok, I have post-frozen photos). It’s a little messy (powdered sugar messy) plus it was ice cream and baking a cake, and I just did it, and it’s in the freezer.

I looked at several recipes and also videos – one recipe called for baking SODA and one called for baking POWDER so I was all, wait, what? Then I found LIBBY’S® Pumpkin Roll and decided that was Authoritative Enough. Plus there’s a video with a really vintage feel (and sorta creepy too) also by Libby’s so you can watch and learn. (It uses both.)

Here’s a few things that almost stumped me:

1 -what size pan again? One recipe said 16 X 11, and one said 15 X 10 <- well, pretty soon they all said 15 X 10. I went to World Market, armed with a 30% off coupon, and their jelly roll pan was 17 X 11! OH NOES! I knew this wouldn’t work because the batter would be spread too thin! A: I went across the street to Walmart and bought a set that had 17 X 11, 15 X 10 and a smaller one. Problem solved.

2 – do you have to spread the batter around, or will it be liquid enough to spread itself? A: it needed spreading, but I just used a regular silicone spatula, not a fancy offset cake thing, and I think I could have done a better job.

3 – when the recipe says to cool the rolled cake before filling, is that cool like, totally cool = room temp? Or cool like, not hot anymore? And how long will that take? See, I wanted to finish the ice cream and spread it right from the machine, so I wanted to time it perfectly. The Libby’s video says “about an hour” but I saw comments indicating they waited too long and the cake cracked. I also saw comments indicating they didn’t wait long enough, and it cracked. A: it took less than an hour to be about room temp to my hand on the outside, and it did not crack.

4 – how in the world will I get the baked cake onto the powdered sugar towel without a catastrophe? I almost didn’t get it on there. I put the towel in the 17 X 11 pan and powdered it there, then I sorta held on to the parchment paper that the cake was still stuck to while I flipped it. Next time – A: put the towel on the cake, cover it with the larger pan and then flip!

I used my Creole Cream Cheese Ice Cream recipe but subbed regular cream cheese (1 1/2 cups) instead of the Creole version. It’s almost chewy – a sort of odd texture for eating ice cream but it will hopefully be wonderful in the pumpkin roll! (spoiler alert: it wasn’t wonderful after all…)

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Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Ice Cream

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Ingredients

3/4 cup all purpose flour (I used Bob's Red Mill organic)
1/2 teaspoon baking SODA
1/2 teaspoon baking POWDER
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon - Red Stick's Ceylon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves - this was an older bottle from the grocery that expired a while back but still smelled good, so what the heck
1/4 teaspoon salt - Red Stick's vanilla salt!
3 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
splash of homemade Mexican vanilla extract <- this is not in the original recipe, but how can one bake without vanilla??
optional walnuts - nope
powdered sugar for the tea towel you roll it up in and also for decoration
Cream Cheese Ice Cream (see Creole Cream Cheese Ice Cream recipe and sub cream cheese for Creole cream cheese)

Instructions

Prep: Make the ice cream and put it in an ice bath to chill. Pre-heat the oven to 375F. Grease the jelly roll pan - I really greased it up, with spray greasing stuff. Cut a piece of parchment or wax paper to fit the pan, and I greased it too, and floured it. Prepare a tea towel that is larger than the cake by sifting powdered sugar liberally all over it - I used my strainer, just like the woman in the video. And I put the towel in the largest of the 3 jelly roll pans.

Measure and Mix: Measure all the dry ingredients into a smaller bowl. Mix the eggs with sugar "until thick" with an electric mixer in a larger bowl, add the pumpkin puree and vanilla and stir, then add in the dry ingredients and stir. Since I just indulged in a new standing mixer, I used the "stir" function in the mixer.

Pour: Pour the batter into the prepared jelly roll pan and spread evenly all around - it ain't gonna spread itself, I learned! If you want walnuts in it, this is the time to put them on the top. I don't want the texture of nuts in my pumpkin roll.

Bake: Libby's says 13 - 15 minutes. I checked it at 12 minutes, and decided it wasn't done, even though the instructions indicate if you are using a dark colored pan, start checking at 11 minutes. I went to about 13-14 minutes then pulled it out.

Flip: right out of the oven, you need to get it on the powdered sugar towel. Think this through while it bakes. I almost ended up losing the cake at this point.

Roll and cool: using the towel, and from a short side, roll the towel into the cake; that is, roll it and the cake together, so the towel is where the filling will be. Some commenters/recipe writers say to roll it tightly but I was too chicken, so it was a loose roll. Wrap it all up in the towel and set it on a rack to cool. Cooling took between 40-50 minutes for the top to feel room temp to my hand, through the towel.

Churn: now churn that ice cream so it's at soft serve consistency when the cake is done! It took me about 30 minutes to churn, so I washed the dishes first.

Unroll and fill: I put the roll back in the larger jelly roll pan (wasn't it smart to buy all 3?) for rolling out right next to the ice cream maker. I plopped some ice cream in the middle and began spreading it around. The inside was still a touch warmer than room temp but it wasn't hot enough to make the ice cream melt immediately.

Roll it back up: I used the towel to sort of push the roll back into the earlier rolled shape, hoping that would provide enough support to keep it from cracking. After I got it rolled up, I didn't want to put the seam side down since it was sort of oozing ice cream. I put two sheets of plastic right next to the roll, and picked it up and set it down very, very gently on the plastic. Again, I couldn't bring myself to put the seam side down, even inside the plastic (which was too narrow for one sheet to cover it.)

Freeze: I put the wrapped up roll on the smallest of the 3 jelly roll pans (hah!) and popped it in the freezer. I want to look at it! But I will be sort of patient and wait at least another hour.

I’m a little worried that the ice cream melted and soaked into the cake, which the cream cheese filling would not do. But maybe even if it did, it will be great!

PS: the ice cream had a very weird chewy texture and I only ate one piece of the cake before deciding it wasn’t worth the calories. Maybe with a less chewy cake – maybe regular Creole Cream Cheese ice cream would have been better, although just basic vanilla probably would be best.