I had taken the beetroot and pureed it to obtain some juice to make a Swiss Roll. As I had diluted the juice, I could not detect any strong beet taste in my roll. The dilution also resulted in a very sweet colour for the roll.
Ingredients:
For the Meringue:
4 egg whites, Grade B
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
60 g castor sugar
For the Batter:
4 egg yolks, Grade B
20 g castor sugar
1/4 tsp salt
45 g oil (I use corn oil)
40 g beetroot juice from 1 cm thickness of beetroot + water
1 tsp vanilla essence
65 g cake flour
1 tbsp milk powder
For the Filling:
130 g whipping cream
20 g powdered sugar
Method:
- Put a tray of hot water into the oven. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees Centigrade. (Adjust according to your oven.)
- Line a rectangular pan (10 inch x 14 inch) with a good quality parchment paper. (This is to ensure that the cake will not stick to the parchment paper.)
- In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg white with a hand mixer over low speed. (Please ensure that your bowl and beaters are dry and have no traces of oil otherwise the egg white will not rise.)
- Once large bubbles are formed, add the cream of tartar.
- Whisk till small bubbles are formed.
- Add sugar gradually in 3 batches.
- Whisk the egg white till stiff peak.
- Once stiff peak is achieved, set the meringue aside.
- In another mixing bowl, add in the egg yolks, sugar and salt. Whisk until they are creamy.
- Add the oil and continue to mix until they are well combined.
- Add the beetroot juice and vanilla essence. Whisk to mix them well.
- Sieve the cake flour and milk powder into the egg yolk mixture. Mix until well combined and the batter is smooth.
- Take 1/3 of the meringue and add to the batter. Use the whisk to mix the meringue with the batter gently, taking care not to deflate the meringue.
- Add another third of the meringue into the batter. Gently mix it with the batter.
- Add the remaining meringue and gently fold it into the batter using a spatula.
- Pour the batter into the pan and spread it evenly with a spatula.
- Drop the pan onto the counter-top from about 1 foot high to break out any large bubbles. Repeat this 2 to 3 times.
- Bake in the oven at 170 deg C for 20 minutes until the cake surface is golden brown. Do not over bake or the cake will crack when you roll it later.
- Once the cake has baked, remove the pan from the oven.
- Drop the pan from 1 foot high onto the counter-top to prevent shrinkage of the cake.
- Remove the cake from the pan onto a wire rack.
- Put another sheet of parchment paper on the cake and invert it to remove the parchment paper below.
- Let the cake cool down completely on the wire rack.
- While waiting for the cake to cool down, whip the cream with the powdered sugar till it is stiff. (Test for sweetness. Add more sugar if the cream is not sweet enough for you.)
- Cut 3 shallow slits (about 1 foot apart) across the cake at the end from which you will start rolling the cake. (This is to aid in the rolling of the cake i.e. to ensure that it does not crack when you start rolling it.)
- Spread the cream evenly on the cake.
- Roll the cake and wrap it in the parchment paper. Put the roll into a plastic bag or cling wrap it to prevent dryness.
- Keep the roll in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.
- After 3 hours, remove cake from the refrigerator.
- Remove the plastic bag or cling wrap and parchment paper and slice the roll for serving.
