Desserts My Mother Taught Me

Books by Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon

      Available on Amazon:    
     "Equal And Opposite Reactions"      http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
     "Hail Mary"                                           https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
     "Tropical Depression"                        https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

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​Desserts My Mother Taught Me

...Continued from previous post:
        My daughter and I decided to round out the holidays by baking up some of our family's favorite  holiday desserts, including a made-from-scratch vanilla cake with strawberries and whip cream,

​…cherry kniffles,

​…and my special chocolate roll, a feather-light, melt-in-your-mouth delicacy made with eggs, sugar, and chocolate baked into a thin rectangle of cake – though it's more of a baked mousse than a cake - then spread with Cool Whip (because I frankly prefer Cool Whip over  real whip cream), rolled into a log, covered with more Cool Whip, and topped with grated chocolate.

​     And yet, though I’ve been making my chocolate roll for nearly five decades worth of special occasions, to me it has never felt like “my” chocolate roll, as the recipe, like many of the recipes among in my culinary repertory, including “my” recipe for cherry  kniffles,

 …was passed on to me  from my mother (pictured below at her 99th birthday party).

    And though I can hold my own in the pastry department, I’m really more your basic, nuts-and-bolts baker: it’ll get made, it’ll be tasty enough, but the presentation won't be worthy of a spread in Bon Apétit.
       My mother, on the other hand, had an artistic touch in baking that I lack. And, unlike myself, she was a master of the art of the chocolate roll.
      The cake part of this confection is so fragile and delicate that rolling it is a fraught task; and yet my mother could always coax the Cool-Whip-covered surface into a perfect jelly roll shape without a crack. Hence she could get by with covering only the top of the roll with Cool Whip (once it hit the market my mother, like me,  preferred Cool Whip over the real stuff) so that the roll evoked a snow-topped log.
          I, however, though I strive to roll up the cake with the care and love of an angel’s touch, always break the thing to smithereens, as I did this past time, too.

​  “I guess you could just smoosh it all together and we’ll call it chocolate mousse,” said my daughter when she saw the seeming cake and Cool Whip disaster.
       But I assured her that I always botch the rolling part of the process, and it always turns out looking this bad, but with a little patting and pushing and a little extra Cool Whip, it can be transformed, mayhaps not into a snow-topped log, but a snow-covered log.

         And, as is so often the case when I attempt one of my mother’s recipes, what the outcome lacked in the presentation department, it made up for in taste.
         Anyway, it has occurred to me that the time has probably come for me to pass on “my” chocolate roll recipe to the next generation so that it can become someone else’s to pass on. But some recipes being just too good to pass along only to one’s own progeny, I’ll share this one – and the cherry kniffles recipe, too - with you all. 

                                                          Chocolate Roll
     7 eggs, separated
     1 cup granulated sugar
      5 tablespoons water
      1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
       1 16 oz. carton of Cool Whip (or you can whip up a batch of real whip cream)
       A couple of squares of a milk chocolate bar,  grated (I use a Hershey Bar)
       
         Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
        Generously grease with vegetable shortening an 10" x 18" cookie sheet with a lip around it. Then line the greased sheet with parchment paper so that the paper extends out over the edges by about three inches. (You will need two sheets of parchment paper because of the width. Grease the part of the parchment paper where the two sheets overlap so that the sheets will stick together). Then generously grease the parchment paper also. 
               Melt the chocolate chips with the 5 tablespoons of water in the microwave. 
               How to melt chocolate in the microwave:
               The key to successfully melting chocolate in the microwave is to heat it until it is almost, but not quite, melted. When it is not quite melted remove it from the oven and stir to finish melting it. You can try heating it at first for about 30 seconds, then remove it and try stirring. If the chocolate isn't yet melting, put it back into the microwave for maybe ten seconds longer, then try stirring again. Continue heating the chocolate for ten second intervals until it's almost but not quite melted, but finishes melting when stirred. 
                 Separate the eggs. Beat the eggs whites until firm.
                 Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and melted chocolate.
            With a large spoon or spatula gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture until smooth. If you have some large white lumps of egg whites, gently press them out with the back of the spoon against the bowl (be careful not to beat the egg whites until they get too hard or else you will have many lumps to press out in the cake mixture).
                Pour the mixture into the greased cookie sheet and gently spread it around. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Don't worry if the cake is cracked on top.
               Let the cake cool. Spread the cake with Cool Whip or whip cream.
               Here's the tricky part (you might need a helper with this. I always do):
              Take the edge of the parchment paper and roll it away from you, releasing the paper as you roll. Roll with the long edge facing you so that you have a long roll. Then spread some Cool Whip on top of the chocolate roll. Or, if you end up destroying the roll, as I always do, - 

...then just cover the roll with Cool Whip (or whip cream) and top with gratings of the squares of chocolate bar,​

...and all will be well.     
      However: Don't use too much Cool Whip or else the Cool Whip will drown out the chocolate cake.

                                                             Cherry Kniffles
     1 cup butter or margarine
     8 oz. cream cheese
     2 tablespoons sugar
     2 cups flour
​     2 teaspoons baking powder
     Cherry pie filling
      Confectioners's sugar
​     
          Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.       
          Cream together the butter, cream cheese and sugar. 
       Mix the flour and baking powder and add to the creamed  mixture. mixing in a little at a time.  Knead for a few seconds into a soft dough. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour.
           Divide the dough into thirds. Roll each third of dough into a rectangle and cut the rectangle into squares of approximately 3 1/2". Place 1 teaspoon of cherry filling in the center of each square, then fold each square from corner to corner over the filling.

       Bake for 9-11 minutes, or until the bottoms of the kniffles are light brown.

         Then top with powdered sugar.

      Enjoy!