A recipe I like to make from time to time that I thought i’d share – a lemonade swiss roll!!! This thing is a little twist on a classic swiss roll, using sherbert, lemon curd and a homemade lemonade syrup to give this rolled up cake log a nice zingy angle, I add poppyseeds to it also, but you can play around with it any way you like!
First up get an electric whisk and whip up the eggs with the caster sugar. Do this for a good few minutes until it starts to go lighter in colour and has doubled in size. Now add in a drop of lemonade (optional), the poppyseeds and the lemon zest, whisk through for 30 seconds. Then add in the flour and baking powder, folding until all combined and dissolved, the batter should be a little thicker now, but still have some movement, try not to over fold it.
Line a 30cm x 20cm cake tin and pour the cake batter into it. Leave to one side and pre-heat the oven to Gas6/200c/180fan or equivalent.
Bake the cake for ten minutes in the oven, until puffed up, and perhaps just starting to turn brown, the tip is to just bake the cake as the longer you bake it the harder it will be to roll, you want to roll it whilst it is warm too so it has maximum flexibility. Only bake beyond 10 minutes if it is still not cooked through, but check each minute afterward, you want it springy.
Cut out another piece of baking parchment and sprinkle it in sugar and add approx. 2tbsp of sherbert, mixing it together on the parchment, make the paper the size of the sponge. Once the cake is ready turn the cake out of the pan onto the sugar, removing the backing paper it was baked in. Get a rolling pin to help you (and some oven gloves for the heat!) and slowly roll the cake sponge up whilst still warm, using the rolling pin as a guide if you wish, keep rolling and wrapping the sugar coated baking parchment in the cake as you roll it into a log, rest it seam side down and allow it to cool like that fully on a wire rack.
Make the syrup meanwhile by adding the lemonade, sugar and lemon juice to a pan, bring it to a simmer stirring constantly, and keep heating it as it reduces down, approx. 10 minutes, keep stirring it from time to time and once reduced allow to cool.
Mix the lemon curd with the remaining sherbert. Carefully unravel the cooled cake, remove the baking parchment and spread with the curd mix all over, before rolling back up.
If the syrup has cooled, warm it slightly to make it more fluid then pour it over the cake, which may fizz a little, add some icing sugar with a sieve and top with extra lemon zest! Slice and serve and keep any spares in an air tight tub!