Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Roll w/ Caramel Stripes
A highly decorative holiday pumpkin spice cake roll delight! With toasted nuts, white (or dark) chocolate, cream cheese frosting filling, caramel stripes and whipped cream rosettes, it’s a bit of a showstopper.
Ingredients
For the Pumpkin Cake:
3 eggs
1 cup white granulated sugar
2/3 cup pumkpin
1 tsp lemon juice
3/4 all purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup coarsely chopped and toasted nuts (walnut, pecans, or your favorite)
Confectioners sugar for dusting (about 1 cup)
For the Cream Cheese Frosting filling:
1 cup powdered sugar
8 oz. cream cheese (room temperature)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 oz) (room temperature)
1/2 tsp vanilla
For the Caramel stripes:
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
½ cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
½ tsp vanilla extract
For the Whipped Cream Rosettes:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
Instructions
For the Pumpkin Cake roll:
Preheat the oven to 350F (no fan)
Heavily butter and flour a 10”x15” jelly roll pan. Set aside.
Spread the chopped nuts evenly on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 7-10 minutes. You will smell them toasting when they’re almost ready. Do not over bake. Set aside to cool.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt. Whisk with wire whisk to blend fully. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add eggs. Slowly add the sugar while beating with whisk attachment on high for 5 minutes.
Beat in pumpkin and lemon juice.
Fold in the dry ingredients.
Spread onto the prepared 10”x15” jelly roll pan. Use a rubber spatula to spread batter into corners. Gently shake the pan back and forth on the counter to even out the batter.
Evenly sprinkle with nuts.
Evenly sprinkle with white (or dark) chocolate chips.
Bake at 350F (no fan) for 15 minutes.
While cake is baking: heavily dust a clean thin dish towel with confectioners sugar in a 10”x15” area.
Immediately after baking, turn cake onto the thin towel and roll. Be sure to catch the towel in the roll to keep the cake layers from touching each other. Otherwise they will stick on un-rolling and tear the cake.
Let cool completely (1-2 hours room temperature, or 1 hour in the fridge)
Unroll and set aside.
For the Cream Cheese Frosting filling:
Place all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. (can be done with hand mixer as well)
Mix 3 minutes or until thoroughly combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl several times.
For the Caramel stripes:
In small heavy saucepan, stir sugar, water and corn syrup together.
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, cook undisturbed until sugar starts to turn amber around the edges.
Gently swirl pan to even out the color. Continue to cook until the mixture turns medium amber.
Immediately remove from heat.
Slowly stir in cream. It will bubble.
Return to heat, boil until caramel is smooth.
Remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla.
Pour into a heat-proof glass to fully cool to room temperature.
Transfer to a squeezy bottle. Set aside.
For the Whipped Cream Rosettes:
In a deep bowl, combine all the ingredients.
Beat with electric beater until it holds soft peaks.
Finish whisking by hand until it just holds stiff peaks. DO NOT OVERBEAT. Cream can “break” and ruin if you overbeat it, and you’ll have to start over.
Assemble the Cake:
Evenly spread all the cream cheese frosting filling on the unrolled cake.
Roll the cake up, fairly tightly. DO NOT catch the towel in the layers this time.
Dust cake roll with confectioners sugar (be sure cake is cooled completely, or the sugar will melt)
Squeeze even caramel strips back and forth over the cake roll. (Drip with a spoon if you don’t have squeezy bottle). Caramel must be room temperature or it will melt into the cake.
Using a piping bag fitted with a large star tip, pipe whipped cream rosettes across the top of the cake.