Eat Me, Alice • Crumbling Raspberry Jelly Roll

This weekend I went on a Martha Stewart baking bender.  Unintentionally, of course.
















The first thing I made were some breakfast muffins, which caught my eye on Pintrest, but didn't seem like enough of a challenge for my Sunday bake.

Last week I said I wanted to try something different - get away from my seeming obsession with squares.  So I made a roll (recipe here).  Because circles are soooo different than squares.

A jelly roll is supposed to be an object of finesse.  Served on a three-tiered platter at afternoon tea.  But this one fell apart on the re-roll.  If Alice saw this, I don't think she'd give it a second look, even if it had an "eat me" label sitting beside it.



Maybe it would look better in Wonderland.

Everything about this recipe was simple and straightforward until it came to unrolling it.  It didn't specify on the recipe, but I think it would have been better if the cloth was damp.  Although it may have been entirely the batter's fault.  The only way to know for sure would be to try again (what a shame!).

Either way, it was so stuck I practically had to scrape it off with a knife.  And as a result, I ended up with a squashed log, rather than a roll.

But even though it doesn't look like much, you still get to eat a plate of sponge cake, raspberry jelly, and cream.  Which is heavenly on the taste buds.  So really, who's complaining??

Another thing I noticed about Martha Stewart, is that she really likes her parchment paper.  I was using a non-stick pan, and the cake just fell right out, so I'm pretty sure it was TOTALLY unnecessary.  And I mean it fell apart anyway!  I'll save my pennies next time.

The breakfast muffins, on the other hand, were quick and painless.  AND they're packed with fruit and fiber.  Uber healthy.  I'm going to try freezing them so I can bring them to work as snacks.

Maybe it was karma when I decided to bake twice in a row that one thing wouldn't work out.  Pitty it was the fancy roll.

The countdown is on until baby Prince George's birthday.  Perhaps I will have a sponge perfected by then.  Although something tells me that could lead to a sponge cake obsession...

Toodles,

Nicola  ♡