Recipies

Honey Roll by Shalini Nanda

• A sheet of génoise cake, or whatever you would typically use for a swiss or jelly roll. (If you have a friendly neighbourhood baker who will make this for you, so much the better)
• Heavy whipping cream
• Lighty toasted cashew or pistachio nuts, coarsely crushed
• Pouring cream and/or thin custard
• Lots of honey

Take your sponge cake (preferably still warm*) so that it rolls the way swiss rolls are meant to.

Roll the sponge gently into a spiral, and let it sit until the cake is cool. Not very long, really.

Gently unroll the cake.

Whip the whipping cream until it stands in gentle peaks. Stop short of  churning it into butter.

Spread that whipped cream generously over the surface of the cake, staying about an inch from the border all around.

Drizzle the surface with a a decent amount of honey. Do not ask me for quantities here.

Top the cream and honeyed surface with a generous sprinkling of nuts.

Gently, very gently, roll that cake back up, trying not to squeeze out the filling.

Set the rolled cake on a platter, allow to rest for a while, then slice, and serve with more cream and nuts and honey.

*If it isn’t warm, wrap it in a clean, slightly dampened dishcloth and pop it in a warm oven for a few minutes. It will comply, in less time than it takes to say “riiicolaaa”, about 15 times.

This is a very forgiving recipe. If your génoise  or sponge refuses to co-operate in the rolling up, think “trifle”, and just slice, or dice it up and layer it. In its original form, this cake was served very moist, drenched in thin custard and chilled.