Adventures in Teenage Baking: Pumpkin Roll

So, for my first adventure in baking (for the blog), I decided to do something that looked completely out of my range of skills and incredibly involved. I looked to Pinterest, and found something that looked just complicated enough for my purpose. A pumpkin roll with a cream cheese filling. I cracked my knuckles, rolled my neck, and said "Challenge accepted".

That is what it is supposed to look like. I have never done something like this.

So I headed to the store for the ingredients. You need;

3/4 cup flour (NOT self rising)

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (but I like to use extra)

1 1/2 teaspoons ginger

1/2 teaspoons salt

6 large eggs

1/3 cup granulated sugar (which I learned is just a fancy way of saying 'not powdered sugar, sugar')

1/3 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup pureed pumpkin (mushed up pumpkin in a can)

1 pack of cream cheese

3/4 cup powdered sugar, and then more for sprinkling when it's done

3 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon syrup

Also, some 'parchment paper', and a 15x 16 inch, thin pan. It said a jelly roll pan, but I didn't know what that was, so seeing the tube-like structure of the pumpkin roll I assumed this would be a really long and skinny bread pan. My mom was so confused when I kept going up and down the aisles looking for a 15 inch metal tube.

In reality, it looks like this.

And I'm pretty cheap, so I just got an aluminum one and it worked fine.

First, I preheated the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Then spray the pan with some cooking spray and spread some parchment paper on it. I also have no idea what that is supposed to be, so I'm going to take a not-so-educated guess and say that this is parchment paper.

Spray the parchment, or wax, paper with the cooking spray and set it aside.

Next you want to mix the flour, cinnamon, ginger, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt in a bowl.

Like that.

Listen, I'm about to give you a tip that I wish this recipe would have given me before I started. Go out and buy yourself an egg separator. I guess this website just assumed I had a spare egg separator lying around . Not the case. I have never been in a kitchen where the person had an egg separator. Not even my grandmother, who has been baking and cooking for 60 years, has an egg separator.

This little gadget's purpose is to separate the egg whites from the yolks. As previously stated, I don't have one of these. So, I improvised.

A small hand strainer and a bowl.

This unfortunately didn't work out very well.

I was left with one option.

Don't worry, my hands were clean.

This was very disgusting. I will be investing in an egg separator soon.

Separate all of the eggs, but don't throw away the whites. I almost did. You'll need them later.

Put the yolks in a mixing bowl. Then add the granulated sugar and the brown sugar.

Mix it until well blended. I advise you use an electric mixer, but hey, it's your life. If you feel like whisking it by hand, be my guest.

It should look like that.

Then add your 3/4 cup pumpkin and mix that in.

Add your dry ingredients. Mix that business up.

Here come the egg whites! Mix those and 1/4 teaspoon salt together and add it in.

Warning; the egg white/salt combination is not going to smell nor look pretty.

I felt extremely hesitant to put that chicken-vomit looking substance in my creation. Do it no matter how disgusting it is.

Just to prepare you for what it will look like.

The recipe said to mix those two together until they were "stiff, but not dry".

I was so confused. What do you mean "dry"? It is a liquid substance. Unless the mixing makes it evaporate at an alarming rate, I don't think it will be dry.

But anyway, I just did mine until it was bubbly and then thought, "Well, there you go".

Then mix that in with the other bowl and make sure they're nice and blended.

The insrtuctions said to mix it in in 3 additions. Whatever. Just pour the whole thing in there and go to town on it.

Pour the finished batter into your pan and pop it into the oven for 15 minutes.

Okay, I'm going to sound like a complete idiot right now. It said to get a clean kitchen towel and dust it with powdered sugar. Thing is, we don't have a kitchen towel. We have dish towels and wash clothes, but I didn't think those would cut it.

So I proceeded to go and get a clean bathroom towel from the dryer and spread it over my counter top, then put powdered sugar on it.

At that moment my mom came in and was like "No, just, no."

She said I should just use wax paper with powdered sugar on it. That seemed to make a lot more sense.

15 minutes later, the bread is ready.

GENTLY lift it out of the pan by the edges of the wax paper. Then flip it wax paper side up onto the counter where your wax paper with powdered sugar is. It should be a wax paper and pumpkin bread sandwich.

You can't see it, but there's wax paper on top of it too.

GENTLY peel off the wax paper on top. Be very careful or it will pull of some of the bread too.

Leave that aside. Now onto the filling.

Mix the butter, cream cheese, syrup, vanilla extract and the 3/4 cup powdered sugar in a bowl. Again, an electric beater is recommended.

Mix it until it is smooth and spreadable.

Not melted butter smooth, but this is good enough.

I think you know what comes next.

Spread the filling all over the bread, make sure you get the edges too.

Sorry for the picture quality, my mom was taking the pictures at this point and was flipping back and forth from the camera to the different apps on my iPod.

Now, here it gets involved.

You want to get the edge of the pumpkin roll and start rolling it

Be sure you pull the wax paper back every few inches so that none will get in the roll.

It's inevitable that this thing is going to crack. Especially when you first start rolling. But hey, I'm not Gordon Ramsey, this isn't "Top Chef" or whichever of the five shows he hosts. I'm just trying not to burn down my house at this point.

The cracking will minimize as you keep rolling. Again, make sure no wax paper is getting in the roll.