Tag: Chocolate and Pumpkin

In my opinion chocolate and pumpkin go together as well as chocolate and peanut butter. I say this because I’ve made a few desserts that have used this combination and they all turned out delish – Pumpkin Brownie Swirl Pie and Chocolate Pumpkin Crepe Cake. There was also the Pumpkin Chocolate Brownies I made that tasted good but required a vast amount of ingredients and ended up being undercooked in the middle. I may have to revisit that recipe since it did taste good but just needed some tweaking. So, it should be of no surprise that I finally decided to make a simple chocolate cake with a pumpkin filling. Well, not completely simple, a Chocolate Roll Cake, which is easy to create but just looks fancier than your everyday layer cake.

Using a devil’s food cake mix, I made the chocolate cake in a jelly roll pan. While it was baking I prepped a clean kitchen towel by sprinkling it with confectioners’ sugar. Once the cake was finished baking I immediately flipped it on to the towel and rolled the cake along with the towel from one short end to the other and placed it on a wire rack to cool for an hour.

While the cake was cooling I made the pumpkin spice mousse and refrigerated it. This is the same mousse I used as a filling for the spice cupcakes I posted about almost two weeks ago. Unfortunately this was my last box of Pumpkin Spice Jell-O pudding mix. I have searched and just haven’t been able to find it at any of my local supermarkets. I’m not giving up hope though. As an aside, if you’re not a pumpkin fan or can’t find the flavor by you as well use another flavor of Jell-O  pudding. The recipe and directions are the same. I went on their website and was surprised to learn of all the flavors they make that I have never seen in the supermarket – cheesecake, red velvet, coconut and strawberry crème just to name a few. Here’s a link to the complete selection.

Once the cake had cooled I unrolled it and spread the pumpkin spice mousse on it leaving a small border around the edges so the mousse wouldn’t spill out when I rolled the cake once again. I used most of the mousse. I then rolled the cake again (without the towel). Placed it on a serving dish and sifted confectioners’ sugar over it. Now, as you can see my cake did break a bit when I re-rolled it. If this happens don’t despair just position the cake on your serving dish with that side down.

And when I sliced into it you barely noticed the tear. The roll design was still visible and more importantly the cake and mousse tasted delicious and that’s what really matters!