Recipe: You'lI fall in love with I Heart Strawberry Cake Roll (2024)

Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes

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SALT LAKE CITY — I Heart Strawberry Cake Roll makes celebrating Valentine's so much sweeter.

The pinks and reds and hearts and loving sentiments come out in full force this week. Valentine's Day is the perfectly placed holiday to rev up an otherwise sedentary winter month, and I love that baking treats is an acceptable form of celebrating.

I have been wanting to recreate my Pumpkin Cake Roll with Toffee Cream Cheese Filling for another holiday. It is one of the most popular recipes on my site, Tara Teaspoon, and I think it warrants a pink variation! With strawberries and cream in mind, I set out to make a Valentine's version.

I started with a genoise cake because this style of cake is light and airy, so it compliments a rich filling, and it is flexible. Not like doing-the-splits flexible, but close. If a regular cake is bent or rolled, it cracks. As with typical American cakes, there is an excess of butter, and butter makes cakes tender and rich, and quite delicious, but the texture is, well, less flexible.

Genoise originated in Italy and is used in French pastry shops. It is a light, eggy cake that is perfect for layering and for cake rolls. It's traditionally brushed with a soaking syrup or layered with jam to add moisture and flavor. I opted for jam here, with a rich filling made from cream cheese and heavy cream.

Classic genoise recipes call for heating the eggs and sugar, but this is tedious, and I wanted an easier, make-at-home kind of method. I opted to beat the eggs like crazy and add the sugar slowly while the eggs whip, so the sugar dissolves as it mixes, without deflating the mixture.

There's no chemical leavening (like baking powder or baking soda) in this cake. So whipping the eggs and using a light touch when mixing in the flour is key. The air built into the eggs as they whip will act as the leavening.

I didn't use the actual cake batter for the heart designs because it needs to be baked right after mixing. So I created a little mini cake batter recipe for the pink and red hearts. You can pipe it onto the pan and freeze it solid while you make the genoise.

I used a jelly roll pan to get just the right size for a cake roll. Jelly roll pans are slightly smaller than a typical rimmed baking sheet. They measure 10 by 15 inches like this one I used from Oxo.

Because the heart design for the cake is on the bottom, you need to do an extra flip once the cake is out of the oven. I used two clean kitchen towels to do this, and simply rolled the cake up in one to let it cool in the shape of a spiral. The jam and filling is next, and then I let the cake chill and set up for a spell. I serve mine with fresh strawberries.

Prepare yourself to get a lot of love after serving this cake. It's kind of a big hit. And happy Valentine's Day to you and yours.

Get more love when you make my other tasty recipes like Pistachio Chocolate Bark and Peanut Butter Brownie Cake.

Love is all around with hearts and strawberries and fluffy cream cheese rolled into a light almond cake. I've created a twist on the classic jelly roll that is a Valentine's dessert as sweet as those you love.

Work time: 45 min
Total time: 4 hours

Serves 10

Heart Pattern Batter:

1 egg white
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon canola oil
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Food coloring

Almond Genoise Cake:

1/8 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
2/3 cup flour
Confectioners' sugar

Strawberry Cream Cheese Filling:

4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
tsp almond extract
1 cup strawberry jam
Strawberries for garnish

1. Line the bottom of a jelly roll pan (10-by-15 inches) with parchment.

2. To make the heart pattern batter: with an electric mixer, whip egg white and sugar until soft peaks form. Mix in oil and then fold in flour by hand. Divide batter in half and color half red and half pink with food coloring. Place each color in a small ziptop bag and snip a small hole in one corner. Pipe hearts, dots and designs onto parchment and freeze the pan 20 to 30 minutes.

3. To make cake batter: heat oven to 350 F. With an electric mixer or in a stand mixer, whip eggs and salt until very light and fluffy, 10 minutes with a hand mixer, six minutes in a stand mixer. Gradually add the sugar while mixer is going and then beat another four to five minutes.

In a small bowl, stir about cup of the egg mixture into the melted butter with the almond extract. Then stir butter mixture back into the mixing bowl to combine with the rest of the fluffy egg.

4. Stir the flour into the batter until just combined. Immediately removed pan from the freezer and gently spread cake batter over the frozen heart designs. Bake until cake is light golden brown and is just firm to the touch, about 20 minutes.

5. While cake bakes, prepare a clean dish towel by lightly dusting it with confectioners' sugar. Have a second clean towel on hand. When cake is done, let sit in pan about one minute and then run a knife around the edges to gently loosen. Turn cake onto prepared towel. Remove parchment and lay second towel over the top of the heart designs. Carefully flip cake over in the towels.

6. Remove the towel from the plain side of the cake, then roll the warm cake inside the second towel from one short end to the other. The heart designs should be facing outward. Let cake roll cool for about 20 minutes.

7. To make the filling: Beat cream cheese and confectioners' sugar until very smooth. Add heavy cream and almond extract and whip until mixture if fluffy and stiff, about two minutes. Unroll cake and spread the plain inside surface with a thin layer of strawberry jam. Gently spread cream cheese filling over the jam, it will be about 1/4–inch thick. Roll cake back up over filling.

8. Wrap cake roll in the towel and refrigerate two hours or overnight. Trim ends and serve on a platter with strawberry slices as garnish if desired.


Tara is a Utah native who has been a food editor for Martha Stewart and Ladies' Home Journal. She contributes delicious recipes to websites and cookbooks from her home in New York City, and has appeared on the Today Show and Studio 5. Find more great ideas on TaraTeaspoon.com.

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