17!

How did my kiddo become 17? As they say, it happens in the blink of an eye. Her birthday fell during Passover this year, so I made her a KFP chocolate roll cake (chocolate sponge rolled with whipped cream). More on that below. But then after Passover, when we celebrated with family, I made her a regular cake as well. This was her second COVID birthday celebration. Hard to believe!

Here's her actual (with flour) birthday cake. I had fun piping the little purple flowers. I actually piped them on parchment and chilled them, then transferred them to the cake. That's one of my favorite ways to do flowers since I am not an expert flower-piper. I can't even remember what flavor the cake was, but most likely either confetti or chocolate.

Back to Passover. I've made this cake before, but this time I decided to document the steps with pictures. First, line the sheet pan with parchment and sprinkle it well with cocoa powder. You'll see that my sheet pan is too big, and I don't own a jelly roll pan, so I created my own with heavy duty tinfoil folded to the right size.

Batter in the pan.

Baked.

As soon as it comes out of the oven, you lay damp paper towels over it for a little bit.

Here's that it looks like when you peel them off - it's weird and pretty.

You invert the cake onto a clean kitchen towel and roll it up tightly and leave it to cool. This is supposed to make it possible to unroll without it cracking, but...

No dice.

However, since I am not actually on The Great British Baking Show (only in my dreams), you cover up the sins with whipped cream and chocolate shavings and no one cares. 

Then you imagine Paul Hollywood just looking at you with his hands in his pockets, shaking his head just a little, and not saying anything, when he sees the tragedy that is the inside of the cake and is decidedly not a perfect Swiss roll. But it tastes good and everyone is happy it's a decent-tasting Passover dessert. (end fantasy baking scene)

Happy birthday to my best girl!