Orange Dark Chocolate Cake Roll

I was going to make my white fruit cakes this weekend but the weather had other plans. It started sleeting Thursday about noon and took my daughter and me 2 and ½ hours to drive the 25 miles home from work that evening. Work was called off the next day and Monday is not looking good for me because we cannot get out of our neighborhood. The temp has never gotten above 20 F. We’ve been homebound for the last four days and it looks like we will be again tomorrow. We are getting a bit stir crazy around here. When I announced I didn’t have all the needed ingredients to make the fruit cake Mr. Picky Eater suggested I come up with a new take on an old standard. I did just that and we are all very pleased – I hope you are as well.

There will be a series of posts this week all leading up to a pretty big deal next week. I have been invited to participate in a joint celebration of Festivus – The Holiday for the Rest of Us. Since we already celebrate Festivus in this house, it was an easy answer! There will be giveaways and prizes at each stop including mine – it’s a pretty darn nice giveaway too! But the biggest news is that I am moving – yep, I am finally taking the plunge and will be the jump from free wordpress – The Domestically Impaired’s Guide to Retro Kitchen Arts and Kalamity Kelli to Kelli’s Kitchen and Kitchen Kelli. I am not really domestically impaired any longer and I am certainly not a Kalamity in the Kitchen so I thought the time had come to reflect that as I moved to my very own website. This time next week I should be completely moved and I hope you will come along, especially since on the 17th there will be such great giveaways and a whole new look (and name) for my blog.

Let’s get back to the post. I went into the pantry to see what I had that would be considered “new” fruit cake. This post is the first idea – in fact, it was the memory of Mary Wicker, one of the ladies who took care of me as a child. As I told you in this post about an English Meal, Mary was British and introduced me to all manner of British things. One of those was the combo of orange and chocolate during the Christmas season. That is probably why I purchased an orange cake mix when it was on sale a few weeks ago.

In fact, I selected several “fruity” cake mixes and my husband promptly turned up his nose. I was not sure what I would do with all these mixes until this weekend and as I had been prompted to do, I came up with a new take on the old standard fruit cakes I had been making for years.

I had dark chocolate baking bars and whipping cream for a ganache’ but what is special about a regular cake. Should it be a sheet cake? Two-layered cake? Bundt cake? No – I wanted to make a Roulade’ or cake roll. We all loved my Coconut Roulade’ and my Swiss Cake Roll. I immediately decided to mix up the cake and pour it into the jelly Roll pan and get to work. But then I gave it some thought and realized I would just have a mess if I did that so I went on the Internet to find out if I could even do it. Much to my delight, I found that I could because Dorothy over at Crazy for Crust had already done it and all I had to do was follow her directions. She, like me, loves a good cake roll so go on over and look around because she has a great website. I also found that using a cake mix takes so much of the work out of it, I was tied up less than ½ the time I usually am. I decided to take this cake to work Monday morning for my co-workers to eat but it was so incredibly subtle and tasty even Mr. Picky eater has eaten three pieces already. Top Girl says it is “rich” but will eat about 2/3 of a piece. The only one of us who did not like it was Rocket……….he took a bite and then acted like he was dying! Such a drama queen. I wonder who he gets THAT from?

Orange Dark Chocolate Cake Roll

Ingredients:

Cake –
3 eggs
1 ¾ Cups of Cake Mix
1/3 Cup water
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
Parchment Paper
Non stick spray with flour in it (or solid shortening and flour)
Tea Towel and ¼ Cup Powdered Sugar

Filling –
1 stick butter softened
4 oz. Dark Chocolate baking bar
¼ teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 Cup powdered sugar

Icing –
½ Cup whipping cream
6 oz. dark chocolate baking bar

Directions:

Put the eggs in your stand mixer or using a hand mixer mix on high for 5 minutes.

Add the water and oil.

Add the cake mix and continue on high for 30 seconds then medium for 1 minute.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F.

Grease the bottom and sides of a 15x10x1 jelly roll pan, and then cut parchment paper to fit the bottom, place on bottom and grease it as well – either with non stick spray containing flour or solid shortening and flour.

Pour in batter and spread out then strike the cake pan on the counter top a few times to get the bubbles out.

Place in oven and bake from 11 – 15 minutes or until the cake springs back. Be sure to watch closely as all ovens are different.

Remove from oven and immediately go around the edges like this with a butter knife.

Flip it out right away onto the clean tea towel sprinkled with the entire ¼ Cup of powdered sugar.

Starting at the short end, roll the cake up into the tea towel and

lay somewhere allowing cooling completely.

Make the frosting by melting the bar chocolate in the microwave according to package directions then allow to cool to room temperature.

Using a hand mixer blend butter and vanilla until smooth.

Add melted and cooled chocolate, mixing well.

Gradually add the powdered sugar and mix until completely incorporated.

Spread onto cake like this:

Roll it up again.

It should look something like this:

Put whipping cream in a double boiler while chopping the bar chocolate.

When the whipping cream is very hot (not boiling) take it off the burner and add the chopped chocolate stirring until smooth and creamy.

Pour over cake and allow setting up.

Store covered in the fridge. Slice and serve when ready.

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