Marble Roll

I haven't posted anything new since last week. I got called on an emergency project at work that has me reporting to far away place every morning for 2 weeks. Baldwin Park, California. Its a 40 mile drive one way, as opposed to my 8 mile drive to my office. So yeah, that's far away. And because its so far away, I really don't have much time to plan for what to make for dinner. So I've resorted to leftovers and repeat recipes.

I woke up this morning itching to bake something new. I thought I would take a gander at making french macarons, which I've been dying to make. A little too complex for today. Then I remembered there was something in my dessert cookbook that I wanted to make - a Marble Roll. It looked pretty simple and I thought it would be a good recipe to get me out of this week-long hiatus. Well, it was pretty simple, and the concept was great. Unfortunately the end product didn't turn out as good as I expected. I was pretty disappointed with the way this cake turned out, so please excuse the photo. It doesn't look much like a roll. I tried my best to accentuate the best part of the cake, and it was hard to do that because there was no "best part." The cake was pretty dense and didn't have much flavor. I've perfected rolling my Pumpkin Roll, but rolling this marble roll was pretty difficult. The original instructions indicated to cool the cake before rolling. To make my pumpkin roll, I had to roll it before it cools to make for easy rolling. If I ever attempt to make this Marble roll again, I'll be sure to roll it the way I did for my pumpkin roll.

Cake

1 cup all purpose flour

1 Tbsp. cocoa powder

1 oz. semisweet chocolate, grated

1 oz. white chocolate, grated

3 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

Filling

6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar, plus more for garnish

1 Tbsp. cocoa powder

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

3 Tbsp. chopped walnuts

1) Preheat oven to 400 deg F. Grease a 12 x 8 inch jelly roll pan, then line it with waxed paper.

2) Sift 1/2 cup of the flour with the cocoa into a bowl. Stir in grated semisweet chocolate. Sift the remaining 1/2 cup into another bowl. Stir in the grated white chocolate. Set aside.

3) With a hand mixer, beat eggs and sugar in a heatproof bowl. Place bowl over a saucepan of boiling hot water. Continue beating mixture with the hand mixer until it holds its shape when the mixer is lifted, about 5-7 minutes.

4) Remove the bowl from the heat and transfer half of the mixture into a separate mixing bowl. Fold the white chocolate mixture into one portion of the egg mixture. Fold the semisweet chocolate mixture into the other egg mixture. Stir 1 tablespoon boiling water into each bowl to soften the mixtures.

5) Place alternate spoonfuls of the mixture in the prepared pan and swirl lightly together for a marbled effect. Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until firm. Invert cake onto a sheet of wax paper. Cover with a damp dish towel and cool completely.

6) For the filling, beat butter, confectioner's sugar, cocoa and vanilla extract together in a bowl until smooth, then mix in the walnuts.

7) Uncover the cake, lift off the wax paper and spread the surface with the buttercream. Roll up carefully form the long side and place on a serving platter. Dust with confectioner's sugar or chocolate curls