Spongecake Roll with Dulce de Leche Filling

Hi all!  Today I decided to make a  sponge cake (jelly roll style) with a dulce de leche filling.  Its been a while since I’ve made a jelly roll, high school to be exact!  We used to make them in our baking class all the time so I decided for old times sake I would make one today.  I used a jelly roll recipe from The Joy of Baking website but made some very minor changes.

Instead of the whipped cream filling, I decided to try dulce de leche instead.  For those that are not familiar with dulce de leche, it is basically a milk caramel.  The name dulce de leche literally translates to “candy of milk” and it is very popular in South America.  The traditional method of making dulce de leche consist of slowly cooking milk and sugar and constantly stirring it until it thickens.  Or more commonly, one can boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for a few hours thus resulting in dulce de leche.  This method absolutely terrifies me…nothing about putting an unopened can in a pot of hot water sounds okay to me (I’m a big chicken as you can probably tell but if you’ve made dulce de leche on the stove top, please let me know your experience).  I’m sure people do it this way all the time and its fine but I know myself all too well, I will walk away from the pot, start doing something else and forget to check the water level in the pot…and before you know it, there’s dulce the leche covering every inch of my kitchen…um, no thanks!

Instead I took the safe route by pouring the contents of one can of sweetened condensed milk into a baking dish, covered it with foil and baked it in a water bath at 425 degrees F for about an hour and twenty minutes.  I checked on it after an hour but it looked too light in color for me so I left it in the oven for an additional twenty minutes which resulted in a nice caramel color.  I let this cool on the counter and then whisked it to smooth out.  Since I wasn’t going to use it right away, I covered it and stuck it in the fridge until I needed it.  When ready to use, simply bring the dulce de leche to room temperature by placing in a warm water bath or microwave for a few seconds.

Sponge Cake Ingredient:

4 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

1/3 cup sifted cake flour

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated white sugar (divided)

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Filling:

1 (14 ounce) can of sweetened condensed milk; bake in a water bath for approximately one and a half hours, check after an hour for deep caramel color.   (Note:  make filling first as it takes a while to bake and it needs to cool)

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.  Butter or spray a 15 ½ x 10 ½ jelly roll pan, line with parchment paper, and then spray the parchment paper with a non-stick vegetable/flour spray or butter and flour the parchment paper in lieu of the spray.
2. Separate two of the eggs, placing the yolks in one bowl and the whites in another bowl.  To the bowl containing the yolks, add the additional yolk and the two remaining eggs.  Allow the eggs to come to room temperature (about 30 minutes).  Meanwhile, in a small bowl whisk the flour with the cornstarch and set aside.
3. After the eggs have reached room temperature, place the egg yolks and whole eggs, along with 1/2 cup of the sugar, in your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Beat on high-speed for five minutes until its thick and pale yellow.  Beat in the vanilla extract.  Sift half the flour mixture into the beaten eggs and fold in gently, just until the flour is incorporated.  Sift the remaining flour mixture into the batter and gently fold in.
4. In a clean bowl, with the whisk attachment beat the egg whites until foamy.  Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form.  Add the remaining one tablespoon of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Fold a little of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it, and then add the rest of the whites (gently folding in).
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading evenly.  Bake for about 6 minutes or until golden brown, you should be able to see the cake spring back when lightly pressed.  Dust a clean kitchen towel with confectioner’s sugar and invert the cake onto the towel.  Remove the parchment paper, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar, and roll up the cake, along with the towel. Completely cool on a wire rack.
6. Once cooled, unroll the sponge cake and spread with the cooled dulce de leche.  Re-roll, wrap well in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for several hours.  Just before serving, dust the roll with a little confectioner’s sugar.  Serves approx. 6-8 people (depending how you slice it)

Sponge cake recipe Adapted from The Joy of Baking

Note:  I used a smaller jelly roll pan because I have a small oven.  However, this recipe filled the pan perfectly, although I felt the cake was a tad bit dense…so I’m guessing with the larger pan the cake would’ve been lighter since it would be thinner.

Rant:  I took a gazillion pictures on my Canon and sadly I’m unable to transfer the pictures to my computer at this time.  Hopefully I will figure out what the issue is and get it resolved soon!  Luckily I snapped these two pictures with my phone so I’m able to share a visual with you, although the quality isn’t great.

Bon appetit!