Chocolate and Cherry Roulade

I made this over the Jubilee Bank holiday weekend when the intermittent rain meant everyone was going nuts inside - and clearly needed a sugar fix to send them right over the top! But seriously, it had been lousy weather, chocolate was much needed, and there was a can of cherries leftover in the cupboard from Hannah's cooking classes just begging to be eaten...

I started by whisking 6 egg yolks and 150g of caster sugar together, then adding 50g of cocoa powder and about 25g of plain flour. I then folded in 6 egg whites which had already been whisked (no that's not true - I was not that organised.  I had already mixed the egg yolks, sugar, cocoa and flour when I realised I still had to do the egg whites so had to wash up the whisking blades first which was very annoying - but writing it in the right order might help someone else avoid this mistake. But just in case not: you should start by whisking the egg whites!). This was baked in a square tin on greaseproof paper for about 20 mins on gas mark 4, taken out of the oven and left to cool.

Once it had cooled down enough - and its never fast enough where chocolate cake is concerned - I peeled it off the paper and slathered the 'wrong side' very generously with the canned cherry pie filling. I then chucked a load of whipped cream on top of this for good measure and began to roll it up.

You can see how generous I was with the filling - it oozed out of the end, but I think this makes the cake taste all the better.  I then sprinkled with a little icing sugar.  I would love to try this out with a bit of cherry kirsch or brandy in the mix too - it might cut across the sweetness quite well.