I really wanted to make some kind of Halloween themed baked good this year, I really did. But the last week kind of got away from me and well, the best I could come up with was this totally unrelated albeit hilarious play on the word roulade. And so we have ‘Chocolate Ghoulade’. It’s a pretty tasty traditional chocolate roulade (or swiss roll if you’re feeling international) made using Mary Berrys recipe. I’d always been put off the idea of making a roulade for two reasons: 1) many recipes I read required the cake to be left overnight before filling and rolling and to be quite honest I just wouldn’t be able to sleep for thinking about that little chocolate cake sitting all lonely and untouched in the fridge and 2) the rolling aspect gave me the willies. After watching Mary Queen of Cakes demonstrate the roulade on the Great British Bake-off I decided that it wasn’t so scary after all and god dammit I was going to attempt it for myself. The texture was light and airy and the flavour sweet and chocolatey. The only thing I would add is perhaps a touch more cocoa powder or some brewed coffee to enhance the chocolate flavour of the sponge. We added orange food colouring to the whipped cream filling for no other reason than because it looked vaguely halloweeny, and I like it so there. Even the rolling went very well, better in fact than Mary’s herself who butchered her poor old cake. It was quite the success, unlike my numerous attempts at baked cheesecake but that’s a story for another day.
The Lobster Club 