APRIL IS BIRTHDAY MONTH

We seem to have a lot of April birthdays in our family—grandparents, cousins, my son Benjamin. So there’s inevitably at least one birthday cake on the agenda.

My usual favorite for birthdays is a carrot cake, which is big enough to serve a party. For Ben’s spring birthday the cake was always accompanied by strawberries. Son Daniel would get pomegranates for an October birthday.

"Gypsy's arm" cake roll, lovely for spring birthdays. Serve with bubbly cava to celebrate.

This year I decided to do something different—a roulade filled with white chocolate mousse. In Spanish, it’s called brazo de gitano—meaning “gypsy’s arm,” presumably because the filled and rolled cake sort of looks like an arm. I’ve noticed that in current pastry packaging, the cake is just called “brazo.” The gypsy designation has disappeared, perhaps because singling out that ethnic group is not politically correct in this day and age.

Ben was off to a birthday barbecue afternoon, shared with a friend with a birthday the day before his. He decided that he wanted a carrot cake too. He got it started; I finished it up. Both cakes went to the party!

"Brazo" in arms.

Cake filling is a white chocolate mousse.

Cake and filling are light and sweet. Strawberries are a nice accompaniment.

“Gypsy’s Arm” (Rolled Cake with White Chocolate Filling)

Brazo de Gitano con Chocolate Blanco

Use either the Custard Cream Filling or the White Chocolate Mousse Filling for this rolled cake, also called roulade, Swiss roll or jelly roll. (You will need some custard cream to make the white chocolate mousse; the remainder can be saved for another pastry.) If using the plain custard, flavor the cake and filling with grated lemon zest. If choosing the white chocolate, flavor it with vanilla.

While still warm, roll up the sponge layer with the towel.

The cake—a simple sponge—bakes in a sheet pan lined with parchment. While still warm, unmold it onto a clean dish towel that has been lightly sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar. Roll cake up with the towel.

When the filling is ready, unroll the cake, spread the filling and use the towel as a guide to roll the cake around the filling. Use the towel to lift the cake and ease it onto a serving platter. 

Makes 10 1-inch slices.

For the sponge cake roll
4 eggs, separated
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
Custard cream or white chocolate mousse filling (recipes follow)
1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Prepare a jellyroll pan or rimmed baking sheet, 11 X 17 inches. Brush it with oil, then place a sheet of baking parchment on the bottom.

Place the egg whites in a mixing bowl and beat them at high speed until stiff.

In another bowl, combine the yolks and sugar. Beat on medium speed until thick and pale. Beat in a quarter of the egg whites. Then fold in remaining whites.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the batter and fold it in with the vanilla.

Spread the batter evenly in the baking pan. It will be very thin. Bake until cake springs back when pressed in the center, about 12 minutes.

Spread a clean dish towel on a work surface and sprinkle it with 1 tablespoon of confectioners’ sugar. Reverse the cake while still warm onto the towel. Peel off the baking parchment. While cake is still warm, roll it with the towel into a long cylinder.

Unroll the cake and spread it with the custard cream filling or white chocolate mousse. Using the cloth as a helper, roll up the cake, enclosing the filling. Roll the cake onto a serving dish and allow it to cool.

Sift remaining powdered sugar over the top. Sift cocoa over the sugar. 

Refrigerate the cake. Use a serrated knife to slice it.

Use an offset spatula to spread mousse on the cake.

Roll the cake, enclosing the mousse filling.

The filled and rolled cake. Ends can be trimmed.

Place strips of parchment alongside the cake and sift sugar over it.  Remove parchment with excess sugar.

Sift cocoa over the sugar.

Custard Cream Cake Filling
Crema Pastelera

Makes 2 cups of custard. You will need only 2/3 cup to make the White Chocolate Mousse. The custard also can be served as a pudding or spooned over fresh fruit.

If using the custard cream for the White Chocolate Mousse, it can be prepared in advance, refrigerated, and melted along with the chocolate.

2 cups milk
1/3 cup cornstarch
2/3 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or lemon zest)

In a bowl combine ½ cup of the milk and the cornstarch. Stir until it is very smooth. Add the sugar and egg yolks to the cornstarch and beat until smooth.

Scald the remaining milk. Pour it through a strainer into a heat-proof pitcher. While beating the egg mixture with a whisk, slowly pour the hot milk into the eggs.

Place the custard mixture in a clean pan on a medium heat, beating constantly, until it thickens. Cook, stirring, on a low heat 5 minutes more. Remove and stir in the vanilla. Beat the custard well, then let it cool before spreading on cake.

White Chocolate Mousse Filling
Mousse de Chocolate Blanco

Chilling bowl and beaters makes whipping the cream faster.

2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
¼ cup water
2/3 cup of Custard Cream Filling (recipe above)
4 ounces white chocolate, broken into pieces
1 cup whipping cream

Sprinkle gelatin over water and allow to soften 5 minutes.

Set a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Put in the custard cream and the chocolate. Heat, stirring frequently, until chocolate is melted. Add the gelatin and stir until dissolved and the custard cream is smooth. Remove from the heat. Scrape into a chilled bowl.

Fold whipped cream into white chocolate.

Beat the cream until stiff. Beat a scoop of the cream into the chocolate-custard filling, then fold the rest of the cream into the filling. Refrigerate 15 minutes. The mousse filling is now ready to spread on the cake.

Why is the cake called a "brazo"? It does sort of look like an arm.

Birthday boy, Ben, gets a carrot cake too. Not nearly enough candles!

More birthday cake recipes:

Olive Oil Carrot Cake (Tarta de Zanahorias) http://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2014/04/birthday-cake-variation-on-old-favorite.html  

 Sponge Cake (Bizcocho de Huevos) http://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2016/03/sweet-cake-for-spring.html  

Layer Cake with Apricots and Marzipan (Bizcocho de Toledo) http://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2011/12/seasons-greetings-with-marzipan.html  

Quince and Ginger Olive Oil Cake http://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2015/10/let-olive-picking-begin.html  

Sugar-free Almond Torte (Torta de Almendras sin Azucar) http://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2016/04/the-dessert-dilemma.html  

Flourless Chocolate and Almond Cake http://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2014/05/cooking-with-annie-b.html  

Santiago Almond Torte (Torta de Santiago) http://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2014/11/almond-torte-great-holiday-dessert.html

SWEET CAKE FOR SPRING

At the end of the days of Lenten fasting comes a time of sweetness. Spring is in the air, flowers are blooming, strawberries are rampant. It’s time to celebrate with a lovely cake such as bizcocho de huevos—egg-rich sponge cake.

Sweet sponge cake with fresh strawberries.

“Bizcocho, hecho con huevos,”--sponge cake, made with eggs--said a dear friend, as she presented me with a gift of heavenly sweet sponge cake. Indeed, her bizcocho was made with freshly-laid eggs from the hens she kept on the back patio. In those days, she carried her eggs to a nearby tienda, a tiny food shop, weighed them, and purchased the same weight of sugar (minus a tablespoon for the shells) and half their weight of flour. A very simple recipe.

The same recipe appears in Sephardic (Spanish Jewish) cookbooks, where it is called pan de España, or “Spanish cake”.

Sponge cake with strawberries and whipped cream.

Sponge cake with chocolate sauce.

Plain bizcocho appears on breakfast buffets in fine hotels. It’s served as merienda, afternoon “tea,” with hot chocolate, coffee or tea. Split and filled with fruit jam or pastry cream, the cake becomes an elegant dessert. It makes a fine base for fresh fruits, topped with whipped cream, if desired.

Fresones--giant strawberries--from Huelva (Andalusia) are as delicious as they look.

Add a bowl of whipped cream.

Today bakeries make bizcocho with fewer eggs and added shortening. Many recipes call for baking powder. But here is the original sponge cake, as I learned to make it and as village women still make it.

Sponge Cake

Bizcocho de Huevos

Eight large eggs weigh just about exactly 500 grams. Half the weight of flour is 250 grams—or 2 cups + 3 tablespoons (I rounded off to 2 ¼ cups). Five hundred grams of sugar is 2 ½ cups—but I used a little less, 2 ¼ cups.

You will need a 9- or 10-inch cake pan at least 4 inches deep. (I used a spring-form mold.) Otherwise, use 2 or 3 layer cake pans or a rectangular sheet pan. Baking time will vary depending on depth of pan.

Warming the eggs slightly in hot water helps them to increase their volume when beating.

Serves 12 to 16.

Huevos de campo (free-range eggs).

8 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 ¼ cups sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
2 ¼ cups flour, sifted
Confectioners’ sugar

Place the eggs in a bowl and cover them with hot tap water. Allow to stand 10 minutes and drain.

Preheat oven to 350º. Have ready a greased 10-inch spring-form mold (or two 9 X 14-inch pans), the bottom lined with baking parchment. 

Separate the eggs, placing the whites in a large mixing bowl and the yolks in a medium mixing bowl. (Break the eggs, one by one, separating the white into a small bowl before adding it to the large mixing bowl. If any of the yolks should happen to break into the white, place the whole egg with the yolks. Use a clean small bowl to separate the next egg, so that no yolk mixes with the whites.)

Beat whites stiff.

Beat the egg whites on high speed until they hold stiff peaks. Beat in the lemon juice and salt.

Beat yolks and sugar until thick.

Beat the egg yolks until combined. Gradually beat in the sugar and lemon zest. Beat the yolks until they are thick and pale in color, about 5 minutes.

On low speed, beat the yolks into the whites (or, fold them in by hand).

Sift ½ cup of flour over the batter and fold it in. Sift and fold in the remaining flour in half-cup additions.  Combine well.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 40 minutes without opening the oven. Test the cake by pressing lightly in the center—cake should spring back. Figure 50 to 60 minutes for  the 10-inch pan. (Shallow rectangular pans will need less baking time.)

Cool cake on a rack.

Remove cake from the spring form while still warm. Allow the cake to cool on a rack. Place it on a cake platter and dust with sifted confectioners’ sugar. 

Sift confectioners' sugar over the top of the cake.

Happy, sweet springtime!