Ho Ho Cake

Do you have ANY idea how juvenile my husband and I can be?  Oh, yea, we can be.  We just do it in the privacy of our own home!   Can you imagine the names we came up with for this cake?  I could get into detail but I will spare you the ridiculousness. 

I had never made a cake roll and it has been just screaming at me to do!  So here it is, the first one ever, that I have done.  I know a traditional HOHO or SWISS CAKE ROLL probably doesn't use a milk chocolate ganache, but can I just tell you how AH-MAZEBALLS it was on this cake?  Notice I use the past tense, because this baby was shared, and devoured!  I wanted to just experiment and give this a go, and low and behold, it was so easy.  You may get discouraged by the length of the directions.  It is a few more steps, but NOT at all hard in any way.  Just prep work to make it turn out as lovely as you had hoped! 

You can choose to just dust it with powdered sugar or cocoa.  You could eve just drizzle it with some chocolate or leave it plain.  That is all in your hands, you decide, but my HOHO Cake had to be as close to the read deal as I could get!  Now get to it!!

CAKE:
4 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
3 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Sift together flour and cocoa powder into a bowl.  Set aside.  In a heat safe bowl whisk together eggs and sugar until combined.  Place over a pot of water water and whisk until it begins to warm the mixture.  Switch to an electric mixer and continue to beat constantly until it has tripled in volume (or close to it!)  Remove from the heat, and gently fold in the flour/cocoa mixture. 

Prep your pan, a 12x16 jelly roll/cookie sheet pan.  Spray with nonstick spray, lay a piece of parchment on the bottom to cover the entire bottom and then spray again.  Spoon mixture into the pan and smooth until even.  Bake for 7-9 minutes or until the cake springs back in the center when slightly pushed in.  Remove and let cool 5 minutes.

While it is cooling, lay out on your counter or table a lint free dish towel.  Dust with cocoa powder and flip the cake out until the towel.  Carefully roll the cake up in the towel.  Flip the end of the towel over the end of the cake and roll.  Leave in the towel and refrigerate for 1 hour. 

FILLING:
1 3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Whip with a stand mixer or electric hand mixer until stiff peaks.  I like to over beat it just a few seconds.  I like super stiff peaks!

ASSEMBLY:
Remove cake from the fridge and roll out carefully on the counter.  It is OK if it won't flatten all the way.  That means it won't crack when you roll it back up! YEAH for you!  Spread the whipped cream all over leaving about a 1/2 inch border all around.  (you may have some cream leftover, just keep it to serve along side!). 

Now roll the cake back up using the towel to help push it along.  Place it on a platter seam side down and prepare your ganache!

GANACHE:
2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. butter

Warm heavy cream until fairly hot.  Put chocolate chips in a bowl and pour the hot cream over the top.  Add butter and vanilla let it sit for 1 minutes.  Whisk until all ingredients are combined and the chocolate is melted. 

Place cake on a piece of parchment paper (I used foil) or cooling racks.  Pick up carefully and dip each end in the ganache and let it drip off.  When both ends have been dipped, place the cake back on the racks and slowly spoon over the ganache until it is all covered. 

If you have extra ganache you can do two coats, let the first one set in the refrigerator first.  OR, you can let it cool, whip it with your beaters and have the best frosting for cupcakes, EVER!

It is not difficult, just a few steps to this fantastic, DELISH, GIANT, HO HO cake!  Enjoy!

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