Dione's Chocolate Roulade

1946- 1962 Cake #12

Dione Lucas was the first woman to graduate from the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. In 1940, she moved to New York where she taught classes in her apartment kitchen, wrote cookbooks, and opened restaurants. By 1946, she had her own cooking show called To The Queen's Taste. This recipe was inspired by a dessert that a french chef once served to her. It is a flourless chocolate cake with whipped cream rolled up inside of it. Her recipe can be found in her cookbook from 1947 titled, The Dione Lucas Book of French Cooking.

My Experience:

I enjoyed the process of making this cake. The number of ingredients is small and there are not a ton of steps. Instead of dirtying a bunch of cake pans, this recipe uses wax paper and a jelly roll pan. All of the batter gets spread evenly and when it cools all of the filling gets spread evenly. The only difficult part was fun at the same time; having to flip the whole pan over while trying to not break it is a fun experiment. Also rolling the cake up into its roulade is always interesting because you do not know if it will crack or break or if you will be able to get the perfect spiral. Mine cracked a bit and did not make a perfect spiral but it still looked decent and what matters most is the taste anyways. I was surprised by how much I liked the taste of this cake. It is rich in chocolate taste but light in texture. It felt somewhat nostalgic. My neighbor said it tasted like an ice cream sandwich and she was right.

I am including the recipe with this entry, I highly recommend this treat for a summer gathering.

Neighbor's Comments:

"The kids and I thoroughly enjoyed tonight's cake!"

"It was just like an ice cream sandwich!! Yum."

"Oh man it is good. Michael's eyes got so wide when I showed him."