Nici Wickes: Lemon and Cream Sponge Roll

Chocolate logs were part of my childhood as mum would whip them up on the regular. This version, all citrusy and light, is the perfect treat for when lemons are in abundance.  

Serve 6-8  

 

Ingredients 

4 free-range medium eggs 

100g caster (about 1/3 cup) + 2 tbsp extra

100g (a generous ¼ cup) plain flour 

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbsps lemon zest

 

Filling:  

200mls cream 

1 heaped tbsp icing sugar + extra for dusting 

2 tbsps. sour cream  

2 tsp lemon zest 

2-3 tablespoons raspberry or lemon curd (optional, see note) 

 

Method 

Preheat the oven to 170 fanbake. Line a Swiss roll tin (or other shallow tin, approx. 30cmx20cm).  

In a large bowl whisk eggs and caster sugar for 6-8 minutes until light, thick and creamy. It will triple in volume. 

Sift in flour and baking powder and, along with the lemon zest, gently fold into the mixture until fully incorporated. Try not to take the volume out of the mixture. Pour gently into the prepared tin.  Spread the sponge mix - I do this with a spatula and/or shaking the tin - to get it into the corners. 

Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until the sponge springs back to the touch. 

While cake cooks, dust a piece of baking paper larger than the swiss roll tin, with the extra caster sugar. 

Take the sponge out of the oven and flip it onto the sugared paper. Carefully peel off the layer of baking paper it was cooked on and allow the sponge to cool for a moment before rolling it up, starting from a short end, with the sugared paper still inside. This will prevent the sponge from sticking to itself. Set aside to cool. 

Whip the cream with the icing sugar until thick then stir in the zest and sour cream.  

Once the sponge has cooled, unroll it gently. Leave a 1cm border and spread over an even layer of whipped cream. Gently roll it up, peeling away the paper underneath as you go.  

Leave it in the fridge to chill and dust with icing sugar before serving. Slice and eat. Yum!  

 

Make it your own:  

Use orange zest in place of lemon 

Spread a layer of raspberry jam or lemon curd on the sponge before the whipped cream 

 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, thank you so much for all of your messages
this morning. Jack absolutely loved your opening spiel. Sounds like
your household is just like ours. Jack, totally agree. These
Olympics have been epic and I'm just like you folding
the washing whilst watching the games. This is the thing
we like. We've transitioned seamlessly in our house from watching
the European Football Championships to watching as much of the

(00:35):
Olympics as possible. And I'll tell you what. Nothing motivates
a seven year old on a school day to eat
his breakfast, put his plate in the dishwasher, brush his teeth,
get changed for school. Nothing at pack his bag, make
sure his books are in his bag. Nothing motivates him
like knowing that he'll be able to sit down and
watch a little bit of Olympic games once he's done.

(00:56):
I've never seen a seven year old so prompt in
all of my life. Ninety two ninety two is our
text number if you want to flick your message. Of
course you can email me if you like as well.
It's fourteen minutes to ten on News talks. He'd be
in our cook Nikki Wakes is here to fuel us
through the last thirty six hours of the Games. Hey Nikki, Hello, Yes,
so was I was?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
I inspired by the rolling of the gymnasts and all
that by this sponge roll. I don't know, but I'm
with you on the Olympics. We we didn't have a
TV as kids at all, and I thought that was
because we were poor, and I later on in life
found out that was not true. It was because my
parents had made a very serious decision not to have TV.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
In which is great.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Was a great decision, which is great.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
But we would hire it for the Olympic Games.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
You wouldn't, So yeah we.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Dad would hire a TV. And we were, yeah, we
want So there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
I know they must have been so exciting you. So
you have the excitement of having a TV and not
only having a TV, but it's a TV to watch
the Olympics.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
There you got Nadia Komenichi was in her prime? What else?
What else?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Okay? Run us through this recipe as.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well as my childhood. Yes, was filled with chocolate logs,
which I loved. My mother seemed to be able to
whip them up on the regular and then I'm sort
of drowning in lemons at the moment, so there's a
scent of lemons everywhere in the yard and my fruit bowls.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Et cetera.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
So I just decided to give this a crack, and
it worked out really well. It's a lemon scented sponge
roll and super simple, so oven goes on one seventy.
I did this in a Swiss roll tin. Actually I
did it in one that was ever so slightly bigger.
Some mine was a little bit thin of the sponge.
But there you go in a large bowl, you whisk
four eggs, and you whisk those with some caster sugar

(02:35):
round about probably a third. I've got one hundred grams here,
which is round about a third of a cup of
caster sugar. Until it goes at the alchemy of eggs
and sugar jack. Honestly, it is just unbelievable. And so
it goes thick and creamy, and it tribles in volume
and then sift in. And you know me, I'm not
a big siftered, but I do sift in for this

(02:56):
one because you want it to have a really light landing,
because you want to keep all that air in it.
One hundred grams of plain flour, which is somewhere between
a quarter and a third of a cup really, and
a teaspoon of baking powder along with some lemon zest,
and I use in this probably about two tablespoons of
lemon zest. Fold that into the mixture until it's incorporated.
You don't want to take any of the volume out

(03:18):
of that mix if you can, but it does go
down a little bit. Pour it gently into a Swiss
rolltin that you've lined, shake it into the corners, or
just gently sort of spatch lureid into those corners. The
great thing about this jack is it cooks in about
ten to twelve minutes until that sponge kind of springs
back to the and then once that is you just

(03:39):
what you need to do is you need to put
another big sheet of baking paper down on the bench
and you flip the cake out on that. I usually
dust that with that big sheet of baking paper with
a bit more cast to sugar and tip it out.
Take the paper that was cooked on off and then
gently fold roll it up and I roll it up
from the short side and you just allow it to

(04:01):
call okay, and that gives it kind of some sort
of muscle memory we're all about the Olympics, so that
the sponge will then be able to kind of reroll
later when you fill it. I filled this with some
beautiful cream. I just whipped up some cream with some
icing sugar to give it kind of an extra thickness.
I also put two tablespoons of sour cream and with
that two hundred mills of cream more lemon zest goes
in there. Whip it up to it's really stiff. Once

(04:24):
you once your sponge roll has cooled completely, you just
gently unroll it and spread it with that cream and
then reroll it. And it's a really good idea to
then let it sit in the fridge. You've got plenty
of that baking paper. Wrap it up in there and
it really kind of sets it if you like, and
then slice away and you'll see by the photograph that
I sent you actually, listeners might note that the big

(04:47):
roll is kind of slightly off camera, and that's because
I'd eaten about half the time I remember, so I've.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Clearly perils of the job.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Job. It's really beautiful. It's just scentered beautifully with that
sort of fresh citrus, and yeah, it's really lovely, beautiful with.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
A little hey, we've just got a great text and
that I've got to read you. I'm fifty five. This
is for Nicky. I'm fifty five. Today was the first
time in my life I've ever heard of someone else
who grew up without a TV but whose parents hired
one for the Olympics. But the absence of a TV
and the highlighting of the Olympics for a brilliant move
by my mom and dad. They're so good.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Oh isn't that great? I love it. I suppose the
equivalent these days is buying a subscription to Sky for
the month or whatever.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, doing something.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
But it was pretty It was such a treat, and
I loved that they bought it for you know, that
they hired it and for that. It was really fantastic,
so great. There's probably other listeners out there. We must
be all in our fifties.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, yeah, so good, right A, Hey, thank you so
much that, I mean, it sounds amazing, And like you said,
like there is just such an abundance of lemons at
the moment, it's hard to know what to do with them. All.
I know you don't drink, but he's what I've done
from my print. I've brewed my own lemon cello for
the first time.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Oh my goodness, I thought you were going to say
that that's amazing. What's it like?

Speaker 2 (06:07):
It was absolutely delicious, and I feel so sophisticated. I
just went, I'm just this is really just a bottle
of hooch with a bit of lemon.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Hey, try it. Try it drizzled over a little bit
of ice cream with whipped cream. I know, why do
you need all cream? That's what But it's that the
whipped cream kind of hardens ever so slightly, and then
you get the lemon callow.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Okay, yeah, great, just to just to make that even
more healthy, a bit of a treat. Yeah, very good. Hey,
thank you so much. You have a great weekend. We'll
catch again very soon. That's Nicky Wax. Her recipe for
the lemon and cream sponge roll will be on the
News Talks.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
He'd be webs for more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame.
Listen live to News Talks he'd be from nine am Saturday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.