i'm back!

so, this blog had obviously been put on the back burner in my life, but now that it's summer, time to resurrect it! also, my good friend Thomas will be helping me out to ensure that it doesn't fall in the cracks once school starts up again.

newest cake venture was a success!!!

Banana Nutella Roll Cake

i used the recipe from Cafe Chocolada's blog, and it turned out amazing!

some things i did change:

• i used nutella instead of jam for the roll cake 
• added some almond extract into the roll cake and vanilla cream filling
• the vanilla cream for the inside filling came out with some lumps so i painstakingly used a strainer/sifter thing to remove them
  
• melted some chocolate chips with a tad of shortening (to harden it when it dries) and used a ziplock to pipe it decoratively on top
• for the cream on top (she didn't have a recipe for it) i just whipped heavy whipping cream with some powdered sugar and vanilla extract until it was firm enough to spoon onto the top of the cake

i really love the way the cake tastes and looks, and the recipe was relatively easy. great results from a first try. something i did notice was the substitution with nutella caused the rolls to be harder to slice...i basically had to wash the knife after every 2 slices or so...maybe a ganache would've worked out better? or spreading less nutella (but really, who wants that)? 

the picture of the cake is also posted on FB and i got some great and positive feedback from ppl who saw that as well as ppl who were lucky enough to get a slice =]. definitely a keeper recipe.