To Roll or Not to Roll
Greeted with an apron and a glass of wine….not a bad start to the night.
We found ourselves as Foodish Cooking School about to embark on a sweet and savoury roulade class. Neither of us had any experience with cooking roulades, in fact we probably had only ever experienced eating some on very few occasions. That didn’t matter at all, we were given everything we needed and plenty of instruction.
Elaine and her team walked us through the process that we would follow to end up with the delicious end point. They also talked us through how to plan our cooking so that we could get everything done in the time frame we had and be able to eat all at once.
First up was the savoury one, a delicious spinach, ricotta and parmesan roulade that was so quick and easy to make and so tasty.
While we were waiting for the savoury roulade to cook, we got started on the sweet one, a chocolate roulade with a cream and raspberry filling, that could be very easily made into a gluten free version as there was very little gluten containing ingredients and those that were present could easily be substituted for gluten free ingredients.
Once the savoury roulade was cooked, Elaine and her team taught us lots of great tips for making all the various parts and how to turn out the savoury roulade onto the parmesan. Importantly, once the filling was placed on the base, she taught us how to safely roll the roulade without loosing the filling or the whole thing off the bench.
By this time the chocolate roulade was in the oven and we were able to take a few moments to taste our savoury roulade. I must say that I’d never tasted a savoury roulade before but, wow, it impressed. And considering the ease at which it is made, it will become a go to recipe in my house!
Once we’d tried the savoury one, and the chocolate one was out of the oven and cooling, it was time to prepare the cream filling for the chocolate roulade. Elaine showed us that the cream needed to be beaten till it was very stiff, a bit stiffer than you would beat cream when beating to stiff peaks and just before it starts to turn into butter. This way the cream will hold together in the chocolate roulade for rolling and hold the berries perfectly.
Obviously, tasting this was spectacular and even though we had all worked in pairs to complete the class we still each got to take some of both the roulades home to show off to our families!
At the end of the class we felt confident in making roulades and even more confident that we would try to make them again at home. It was a great night and fabulous hosting from Elaine and her team. We’ll be back to Foodish Cooking School for sure.
