Snoep chocolate roll cake is a chocolate roll cake which uses maizena or corn flour. I made this cake while ago and success. I used new oven, so, I wrote my experience when baking it. Not soon after that, I baked again. I forgot to take a look at my own notes. Hahaha. Goodness! It was a mess!
I found problems:
1. The cake requires more chocolate powder than corn flour. Somehow, this always created ‘wet’ surface. The worse was, I tried my favorite chocolate powder when first time baking it again. The nature of the chocolate powder is damp. I mean, after baking it, it is not dry but rather damp and create very moist texture.
2. The baking paper created more problem. I tried to add time to make the surface dry but at the same time, the bottom part is kind of hardened. It was worse when i used the paper with a little bit kind of ‘wax’ on it. I dont know whethet it is wax or not. The feel is like a wax but only slightly.
3. The cake surface might seem had dried on the surface when I touched it but after it cooled down, it was wet or damp!
4. I used supposed to be ok mould size but apparently, along with additional baking time, it made my cake crispy. 😑😑😑
5. The icing sugar use on rolling paper to avoid sticky cake was useless when the surface was still damp after cooled down. So, just make sure it is DRY.
I did these then
1. I changed the chocolate powder. It was still damp and hard to dry. I then change the composition. I reduced it and added more corn flour weight.
2. I used the very least wax-feel paper.
3. I add 10-15 minutes to make the surface dry. I kept checking every 2 minutes.
4. I let the cake cool down and then touch the surface to make sure it is not damp.
5. I supposed to use top heater only when adding 10-15 minutes but i wasnt sure about the sign on the setter 😂😂. As a result, the bottom of cake was slightly hardened on some parts.
6. I used one number of size smaller than supposed to to avoid crispy and too thin cake like before. The cake is actually flexible but since I used smaller mould, it was a biiit hard to roll. Yet, i did it. I havent checked it out buy seems no sticky surface on the rolling paper and i hope no crack either. I haven’t unroll it since i put it in the fridge. But i feel it was ok since the surface was dry. I didnt event have to pour icing sugar on rolling paper.
The lessons are
1. Know our oven. New oven, new learning possibility.
2. Know our ingredients. Dont stick to one brand. Sometimes we have to try other brand though it seems same thing. Sometimes for same purpose wheat flour, the protein percentage for different brands is not the same. My cousin changed his flour for this kind of reason.
3. Sometimes, small thing can influence, like baking paper. The more varied cake type we make, the more new learning we get. Some cakes may look easy to be made but actually very sensitive cake. Really, the roll cake is one of the the most difficult cake for me (yet, traditional cakes are more difficult. 😂. )
edited: I made another roll cake to test again if what I did was consistently right. Succeed.