Flourless chocolate roulade made with plain chocolate and eggs and filled with whipped cream. Served with fresh raspberries or black cherries for a luxurious afternoon treat.

This recipe for chocolate roulade looks fairly complex, but I promise you it’s not as difficult as you think. Just take your time and don’t rush the process and you’ll end up with a delicious dessert that taste as good as it looks!

Why make this recipe?

Easy enough to make (although slightly time consuming)
Flourless recipe (doesn’t use any flour and is gluten free)
Can be made with different flavours and different fresh fruit

Any specialist equipment needed?

You’ll need a shallow large baking tray, so that the cake mixture is about 1 – 1,3 cm thick. This should be baking tray with risen sides and size about 33 x 23 cm.

Time saving tip

This cake is best about 12 hrs after it’s been assembled to get the sponge softened with the cream filling and to cut easily. This means that it can be easily made 12-24 hrs before you want to serve it.

Ingredients & Possible Substitutions

Chocolate

It’s best to use plain dark chocolate bar for this recipe, because the flavour is much more intense. If you wanted to substitute dark chocolate for milk or white chocolate, that would work too, but it will make the cake much sweeter.

Sugar

Caster sugar is best for this recipe as it’s easy to bake with.

Eggs

This recipe is heavy on eggs and you will need seven of them! This is because they partly replace the flour in this recipe and the whipped egg whites act as a raising agent.

The eggs are quite important for this recipe, so don’t try to swap them around for something else.

Cream

I’ve used double cream for this recipe, but single cream would work too. If you fancy a different flavour, you can use 50% cream and 50% cream cheese, which will make an interesting change.

Alcohol

This is completely optional, but if you want to the cream filling works great with Cointreau or Grand Marnier. If you are thinking of adding raspberry or cherry into the roulade, then Raspberry Liqueur or Brandy would work equally well.

Icing sugar

Icing sugar is for dusting when you start to roll your chocolate roulade together. It’s optional, but I find it useful as it sticks less to the tea towel.

Fresh Fruit

Raspberries or black cherries work great with this recipe. You can either serve the chocolate roulade with fresh raspberries on the side, or you can add them on top of the cream and roll them into the roulade.

The method

First of all preheat the oven to 180C about 10 minutes before you want to bake your roulade. Lightly oil and line a 33×23 cm tin with nonstick baking parchment. If you have swiss roll tin, that’s fab, but don’t worry if you don’t, just use a large tray.

Break the chocolate into small pieces and place into a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Leave until almost melted, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and leave to stand for about 5 minutes.

Whist the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and creamy and the whisk leaves a trail in the mixture when lifted, then carefully fold in the melted chocolate. In the clean grease free bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff, then fold one large spoonful into the chocolate mixture.

Mix lightly, then gently fold in the remaining egg whites. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and level the surface. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 min or until firm.

Remove the cake from the oven, leave in the tin and cover with a wire rack and a damp tea towel. Leave for 8 hours or preferably overnight. Leaving the cake in the tin overnight gives it a fudgy texture and also means that the cake is less likely to break when it is rolled up.

Next day, dust a large sheet of nonstick baking parchment with two tablespoons of icing sugar. Unwrap the cake and turn carefully onto the greasepreoof paper. Remove the baking parchment.

Whip the cream with the liqueur until soft peaks form. Spread over the cake, leaving about 2 cm border all round.

Using the paper to help, roll the cake up from the short end. Transfer to a serving plate, seam side down and dust with the remaining icing sugar. Decorate with fresh raspberries and mint.

Tips for perfect chocolate roulade

Use the right size of baking tray to make sure that your sponge layer is not too thick (or thin). You should be aiming at about 1 cm depth
Check the oven temperature to make sure that you don’t bake your roulade on too high temperature, as this would dry the sponge layer too much and made it to crack when you roll it
Don’t overbake the sponge layer. It’s tricky to tell when the sponge is baked as the chocolate is dark and it’s difficult to see, but the sponge should be firm to the touch and slightly peeling from the sides.
Line your bakig tin with a baking parchment – no matter how ‘non-stick’ your baking tray is, I find it’s best to line the baking tray with baking parchment to get the chocolate sponge out in one piece.
Place a clean and slightly damp tea towel on the chocolate sponge when you take it out of of the oven and leave to cool down the chocolate sponge in the tin until it’s completely cold. If you have the time, leave it overnight or during the whole day. This will make the sponge nicely moist and fudgy and easier to roll later on.

How else you can make this chocolate roulade?

Chocolate & Coffee

Add a teaspoon of granulated coffee to a tiny bit of hot water to make a coffee extract. Add to the cream and use coffee liquer or rum (if using) instead of the Grand Marnier.

MORE CAKE RECIPES

Serving size & can I scale up or down this recipe?

This recipe makes 1 roll, which gives you 8-12 portions, depending on how thick you cut them.

How to serve chocolate roulade

This flourless chocolate roulade recipe is perfectly fine as it is with just a light dusting of icing sugar. To make the cake extra special you can serve it with fresh raspberries or dark cherries. A homemade chocolate sorbet, salted caramel sauce or traditional chocolate syrup would also work great with this recipe.

Can this recipe be made in advance?

This recipe is best after about 8-12 hrs of chilling in the fridge, so it’s perfect to be made in advance.

How to store this recipe – any leftovers

It’s best to keep it in the fridge and eat within 2 days.

Why not stay in touch…

I hope you enjoy making this recipe and if you do, I’d love to know what you think! Let me know in the comments below or find me on Instagram or Facebook and add the hashtag #cocoaandheart so that I can see your post.

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Magdalena