Jelly Roll Recipe

DON'T START THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE WAXED PAPER - Keep reading. You will see why....

YIELD: 1 15 inch long cake

Ingredients:

* 4 eggs ~ separated

* 3/4 cup sugar

* 1 tablespoon vanilla (sometimes I use half almond and half vanilla extract)

* 3/4 cup flour

* 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

* 1/4 teaspoon salt

* Garnish:

Powdered sugar for dusting the outside.

1 cup jam or jelly, stirred well (no chunky jam works best)

Procedure:

* Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

* In a small bowl beat egg whites until stiff.

* In another bowl, beat the egg yolks until light.

* Gradually add the sugar and vanilla, and mix well.

* Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. (If you don't have a sifter ~ use your beater to get some air into the ingredients)

* Take the sifted flour mixture and add it to the egg yolk mixture.

* Gracefully and with style fold in the egg whites into the yolk/flour mixture.

* Pour the batter into a 15 by 10 by 1-inch jelly roll pan lined with waxed paper. SERIOUSLY don't skip the waxed paper.

* Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until the cake is golden.

* Let the cake cool just a few minutes (Just enough so you can flip it on a towel).

* Take some powdered sugar and beat it (dry) so that there are no lumps.

* Dust a tea towel with the powdered sugar.

* Loosen edges of cake, invert cake onto that towel you prepared with the powdered sugar.

* Sl-o-w-l-y peel the wax paper off the cake.

* If the edges got crusty - trim them.

* Start on the narrow side and roll the cake and towel up together.

* Now you can cool the cake. Put it on a cake rack and turn the seam down.

* Leave it there about for 10 to 15 minutes.

* Once cake has cooled, gently unroll and spread cake with jam or jelly and re-roll.

* Sprinkle with powdered sugar again.

* You can cover it with whipped cream and nuts, coconut, sprinkles etc...