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Japanese Chocolate Swiss Roll Cake

by momen
chocolate swiss cake roll recipe

chocolate swiss cake roll recipe

Making a swiss roll cake is an easy choice when you crave for something fluffy sponge and cream combination. I made a swiss roll cake many times from the book and every time tweaked the ingredients and method to suit my favorite texture. Finally I share my best Japanese chocolate swiss roll cake with strawberry! It’s very easy to make, super fluffy and melt-in-your-mouth texture.

3 tips : How to make Japanese style swiss roll

1. Beat whole eggs over pre-heating water.

Heat a few inches of water in a large pot / frying pan and remove from the heat just before start simmering.

Beating whole eggs and sugar in a large bowl over the hot water allows the sugar melts and the eggs become foamy easily. But make sure to remove from the hot water when the eggs reach body temperature after 3-4 minutes. It’s very important to beat the egg until soft peaks to make a light airy sponge. The soft peaks means that if you lift up the beaters from the batter, the tip of the peak curls slightly and the batter with the beaters fell very slowly into ribbons. The whole process will take 6-7 minutes.

chocolate swiss cake roll recipe

2. Warm up milk before adding.

Once the egg mixture is ready, the next step is adding the milk of your choice. But if you add cold milk, the mixture will turn to be runny. So pour the milk into a small dish at first and then place in the hot water or heat up in the microwave until around hot bath temperature.

3. Making incisions before rolling up.

This recipe doesn’t require to pre-roll the sponge foundation. But you need to make shallow cuts at 3 cm (1 inch) interval horizontally in the direction you roll up. Be sure not to cut all the way through the cake. The incisions allow you to roll up without cracking the beautiful surface. If you used rectangle baking tray, start to roll up from the short side of the cake.

chocolate swiss cake roll recipe

chocolate swiss cake roll recipe

I hope you enjoy the light and moist chocolate swiss roll cake for your weekend dessert!

chocolate swiss cake roll recipe

If you are interested in plain Japanese swiss roll cake, also check out my plain swiss roll with banana filling recipe!

chocolate swiss cake roll recipe
5 from 3 votes

Japanese Chocolate Swiss Roll Cake

Author Matcha and Tofu
Servings: 1 swiss roll cake

Ingredients

Sponge Cake

  • 4 egg
  • 5 tbsp (80g) granulated sugar
  • 2 tbsp milk of your choice
  • 4 tbsp (40g) cake flour or 3 tbsp plan white flour (all-purpose flour) + 1 tbsp cornstarch
  • 2 tbsp (15g) unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 6 strawberry

Chocolate Whipped Cream

  • 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 200 ml heavy cream (double cream)

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / gas mark 4. Line a parchment paper on a baking tray.
  • Heat a few inches of water in a large pot / frying pan and remove from the heat just before start simmering.
  • Place the egg and the sugar in a large bowl and beat over the hot water with an electric hand whisk until the mixture become body temperature. Remove from the hot water and keep beating the mixture until soft peaks. (See the tips above)
  • Warm up the milk over the stove or in a microwave until around hot bath temperature.
  • Pour the warm milk into the egg mixture and whisk with a wire whisk (not electric one) until blended.
  • Sift half the flour and the cocoa powder into the mixture and whisk until well blended. Repeat the process with the remaining flour and the cocoa powder.
  • Pour the mixture into the baking tray and even the surface with a lubber spatula. Then drop the tray from a height to release air bubbles and bake for 12 minutes.
  • Meanwhile baking the cake, make chocolate whipped cream. Place the cocoa powder, the sugar and cold heavy cream in a large bowl. Then beat with an electric hand whisk until stiff peaks.
  • Take out the cake from the oven and drop from a height to prevent shrink the cake. Then remove the cake from the baking tray and cover with another parchment paper which is large enough to cover the cake. Set aside to let it cool down.
  • Invert the cake to the covered parchment paper and gently peel off the sticking parchment paper. Place the short side of the cake in front of you. Make shallow cuts at 3 cm (inches) interval horizontally. Be sure not to cut all the way through the cake. 
  • Spread the whipped cream onto the cake and place strawberries on the nearer side. Then rolled it up gently using the parchment paper. Keep the cake rolled with the parchment paper and cover with a plastic wrap on both sides. Put in the fridge for at least 1 hour before slicing.

Notes

  • I used a 29 x 29 cm (11.4 x 11.4 inches) swiss roll baking tin.
  • You might use different sizes of baking tins. In case, the thickness of the batter should be about 2 cm (0.8 inch). Because it affects the baking time and rolling up the fillings.
  • If you are planning to convert the recipe for more servings, the comment below would be helpful.

Editor’s note : Since I made a mistake on the inch sizes of my tin, I revised it on September 1, 2019.

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24 comments

Aaminah Razick 20th 3月 2021 - 6:57 am

Hi Eri!
My name is Aaminah and I’m trying to make this recipe but I am confused as to whether I should follow the tablespoon measures or the gram measures, as they do not match. Thanks so much!

Reply
momen 29th 4月 2021 - 3:34 pm

Hi Aminah, sorry for the very late reply. The gram measures are more precise than tablespoon measures. Thank you for coming!

Reply
Radhika Naidu 29th 12月 2020 - 5:46 am

Hi,
Can this recipe be converted into a round cake with one layer? Would love your advice please, on how to adjust recipe for a 24inch round springform pan that I can slice to make a layer of cream in between. Thank you from New Zealand!

Reply
momen 30th 12月 2020 - 4:52 pm

Hi, thank you for stopping by my site, but 24 inch is too big to adjust this recipe. I’m sorry that I was unable to meet your expectations.

Reply
Crystal 26th 12月 2020 - 11:57 pm

Hi there,
I was wondering when i roll the cake or peel it off the parchment, sometimes chunks of cake fall , it serems to stick on the parchment paper. Do you have any advice so that the peeling of the parchment is more smooth? Is it because i have to wait for it to cool down more? I roll it when it’s still warm.

Reply
momen 30th 12月 2020 - 5:01 pm

Hi, I think that you should wait for it until completely cool down. Or maybe it’s needed to bake it a little bit longer.

Reply
Cynthia 26th 12月 2020 - 9:39 am

I’m super excited to try this recipe! If I wanted to make it coffee flavored instead, how many grams of instant coffee would you recommend I put in?

Reply
momen 26th 12月 2020 - 9:25 pm

I recommend to use 1 tablespoon of instant coffee (5g) dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot water. And add the coffee instead of the milk. Also, you should add 60g of flour instead of the 40g. Thank you for trying different flavor based on this recipe!

Reply
Crystal 22nd 12月 2020 - 11:11 am

Hi !
I made this cake using this recipe recently and it turned out great! I was wondering how much matcha powder to put in instead of cocoa powder if I wanted to make a matcha swiss roll instead or a coffee one?

Thank you.

Reply
momen 23rd 12月 2020 - 4:39 pm

Hi! I think 5g of matcha powder is the appropriate amount for this cake. You can make matches swiss roll cake with the same ingredients in this recipe, but I recommend to add 60g of flour instead of 40g.

Reply
Priyanka shingla 25th 9月 2020 - 2:55 pm

Hi. I totally loved the recipe and the fact that we needn’t use any kind of artificial rising agent. The sponge came out extremely soft, but for some reason the sponge cracked a bit too much while rolling. Would be great if you could post a video on how to roll such super soft sponge. Thank you.

Reply
momen 25th 9月 2020 - 7:49 pm

Thank you for trying this recipe! I’ll try to take a video of rolling the cake!

Reply
Maria Wallace 18th 9月 2019 - 4:20 am

Oh goodness Im so glad I found your blooogg!!! I just shared to my friend in Mexico, she is looking for the Japanese cheesecake!

Reply
momen 18th 9月 2019 - 7:42 am

Hi Maria! I’m so glad that you shared my blog to your friend. My site includes Japanese cotton cheesecake cups (https://wp.me/p9RE1x-Ap). I hope the recipe appeals to your friend. Thanks for visiting!

Reply
Kathy 31st 8月 2019 - 3:59 pm

HI Eri!

My name is Kathy and I want to make this dojima for a dinner party tomorrow. Instead of making 2-3 rolls, I would like to make only 1 big roll. In the US, we have a jelly roll pan – mine is 12 x 17 x 1 inches. I’ve used this to make a fabulous ice cream roll. In your opinion, can I double the recipe for my pan? I saw that you use a 7 x 7 inch pan. Arigato!

Reply
momen 1st 9月 2019 - 1:03 am

Hi Kathy! In my opinion, it’s possible to double the ingredients to make a big roll. But I should apologize to you that I wrote “I used 29 x 29 cm pan (7 x 7 inches)”. I felt something was not right and I looked it up again. Then I found out that 29 cm is actually 11.4 inches. Sorry, I didn’t notice I wrote it wrong until now. So double the recipe may be too much to fit your pan.

Reply
Dalni 4th 5月 2020 - 2:54 pm

5 stars

Hi there, I would love to try this. I’m just wondering the amount of ingredients I should use for 8 x 8 inches pan. Please do let me know. Arigato 😊

Reply
momen 5th 5月 2020 - 1:13 pm

Thank you for visiting my site! The volume of your pan is approximately half of mine. So if you reduce all the ingredients by half, it will fit your pan. I halved the ingredients for you as follows.

SPONGE CAKE

2 egg
2 1/2 tbsp (40g) granulated sugar
1 tbsp milk of your choice
2 tbsp (20g) cake flour or 1 1/2 tbsp plain white flour (all-purpose flour) + 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp (7.5g) unsweetened cocoa powder
3 strawberry

CHOCOLATE WHIPPED CREAM

1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 tbsp granulated sugar
100 ml heavy cream (double cream)

Reply
Angela Yin 7th 8月 2020 - 1:47 pm

Hi,
I also want to use a 8 x 8 inches pan. Were you able to be roll up the cake?

Reply
momen 7th 8月 2020 - 2:38 pm

I think it’s not a problem. Because 8 inches pan is almost same size of mine!

Reply
Kaya 24th 5月 2019 - 1:31 pm

I tried the cake today and it was amazing! If I wanted to make this as a vanilla swiss roll, should I replace the cocoa powder with more flour or just leave it out all together?

Reply
momen 24th 5月 2019 - 11:10 pm

Hi Kaya! Thank you for your comment! I’m glad to hear you enjoy the cake!
I haven’t tried a vanilla swiss roll with the same egg ratio of this recipe. But if I do next time, I guess I will substitute 2 tablespoons of cake flour for the cocoa powder. I hope this will help!

Reply
Anastasia X 10th 5月 2019 - 8:04 am

5 stars

This recipe is great! I found the egg beating technique very interesting. It’s definitely easier than separating the eggs.
The cake part had a good texture – fluffy and moist. Doing the drops is very important to get all the large bubbles out. I also suggest sticking close to the recipe portion size… I wanted to make four rolls and quadrupled the ingredients, and it took very long to get through all the steps. Next time I will do the single portion or only double it. It’s also important to have a pan that has the same square inches/centimeters as in the recipe so the cake is not too thick or thin.
I was also impressed by how this cake kept its pretty crust and didn’t require pre-rolling! It’s a very pliable cake. I was very impressed.

Reply
momen 10th 5月 2019 - 11:42 pm

Hi Anastasia! Thank you for trying my chocolate roll cake! And also, I’m sorry for taking your time to make four rolls. I really appreciate your suggestion and will add a note about the portion size and the pan size in the recipe.
I’m so glad that you like the method of the chocolate roll cake!

Reply

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