Unlike the rather easy chiffon cakes, swiss rolls belong to the "difficult to master" category. At least this is what I felt.
Above left, what Judy demonstrated- a brightly coloured party confection with cute white mice. On the right, our products. None of the three cakes turned out right, even though we used emulsifiers in some of them. So unappetizing and dry that the cakes remain untouched after two days.
The only comfort is that almost everyone in the class experienced the same difficulty. Judy didn't even bother evaluating our efforts. Instead she gave us a recipe for log cake which she promised will result in a more tender cake. We'll see....
Updates (1st March 2006)
1. We, i.e. my friend rojak and I, made another swiss roll today. It is from Judy's recipe for log cake, and is very tender due to the egg yolks and milk inside, and turned out quite well. We spread it with cream cheese and liquer-soaked fruits and it was delish. It is still not comparable to Polar sugar rolls but not bad if I may say so myself.
2. To answer slurp's question, the rainbow colours are achieved by using colouring and piping bag, like so:
