French Fridays with Dorie - Blueberry Marscapone Roulade

Friday, July 13, 2012


From the 10 basic ingredients required for today's recipe I could use "guilt free" {see millions of food intolerances in previous post}only...one. The blueberries! So I kept the blueberries, but made two versions of the rest.

Let me explain...{make a cup of tea and eat a slice of your roulade, it's going to take some time}

Georgie cannot have all-purpose-flour because it contains gluten, right? Right! So I used a mix of potato starch, corn starch, millet flour, chestnut flour and arrowroot flour with a dash of guar gum and two tablespoons of baking powder (GF off course!!) to substitute one ingredient - not really frugal nor cost effective, but oh well...

He cannot have eggs - whites and yolks -  which means no meringue and off course no fluffy yellow cake !!! How was I to substitute the eggs? That was a real brain-teaser. I opted for a no egg meringue using egg substitute and water. I whisked those two into submission and I finally got something that could easily pass for a meringue. As for the yolks, more egg substitute and water... 

Instead of adding the vanilla essence into the cream filling, I cut open a vanilla pod and scraped the seeds into the batter to disguise the intensity of the flour mix. 

As for the sugar, I used stevia for the cake and rice syrup for the blueberries and coconut flour instead of icing sugar. 

So far so good and to tell you the truth that was the scariest part of the process, but I put the mix in the oven and it didn't fall apart and what's more, it rose a couple of centimetres (hooray!). Compared to Dorie's version in the book photograph it looked like a very thick crepe but the taste was surprisingly good. No flour smell or after-taste, nice vanilla aroma and quite sweet to the tooth. 

Where things went horribly wrong was with the filling! This miracle of Italian cheese mastery is a no, no, no, for both me and Georgie. There was no way around it. It had to be substituted. I though that I could cheat a little bit and bought lactose free double cream, which I subsequently proceeded in whisking it into a quite firm chantilly. Then I whipped a bit of coconut milk with a pinch of guar gum to a thick enough consistency to be added to the chantilly. But when I put those two together the chantilly gave way and started to liquify. I put the whole thing in the fridge for an hour hoping that the coconut milk will solidify with the cold and keep a thick texture. It did, but not enough. I gave up, poured the blueberries into the almost liquid cream and spread them on my thick pancake of a cake. The taste again was really, really, nice. The sweetness of the coconut milk and the blueberries saved the day, but the visual effect was not very appealing. 

They say that hunger starts from the eyes, but well, in my case I would definitely win only if I served this to a person with very advanced cataract! Lesson learned. Next time a recipe calls for dairy free filling I will go for the traditional, yet boring way and use soja based products. 

Time to unveil the product of my labour...
The Gluten Free, Lactose Free, Sugar Free, Egg Free Blueberry Roulade

I mentioned at the beginning that I made two versions, the "Free from Everything" and Dorie's original with eggs and meringue and Marscapone and sugar. I did not taste it. Not even to lick the leftover filling from the bowl (yes I am that strong and I pay a lot in therapy for that reason). Georgie's colleagues said it was divine: the cake was fluffy and the filling light and quite refreshing (their words I swear).

This was a real challenge. I believe that some recipes are not meant to be tempered with. A roulade needs a fluffy cake and you cannot have this without the eggs. Maybe if I was a chemist I could come up with a different way to emulate the effect of a beaten egg white has in a mix of flour and eggs but I am not. I am just happy that with next week's recipe, I do not have to change anything!

To see how other bloggers made the Blueberry Marscapone Roulade, check out French Fridays with Dorie where we make recipes from Dorie Greenspan's Around my French Table.

16 comments:

  1. Oh Maria you are fantastic and thank you so much for finding me. I can't believe that the egg-replacer worked and could be whipped into a meringue. I think your cake looks wonderful. And no eggy taste. By the way what are soja based products. I really am trying to cut out the dairy but I don't like the products I have tried. Just started following you via e-mail. Have a wonderful day.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much Suzi! I like your blog very much and I am going to try many of your lovely recipes! I am not a big fun of soja either, but I think if you really have to make a thick, firm dairy free chantilly you have to use silken tofu. Coconut milk (full fat) will also make a firm cream, just keep it in the fridge before and just use the solid part of the can instead of the liquid. You can also try various nut milks, almond milk is my favourite and rice milk is also very good. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Maria you deserve some kind of award for all your efforts! I admire your creativity in coming up with substitutions:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much Guyla !! Some substitutions worked, some didn't but I had a lot of fun while baking this roulade !

      Delete
  4. I think both versions came out amazing - especially considering the amount of effort you put in.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Cher ! I think the "free" version came out pretty good, considering the lack of eggs! I will try to make it again and maybe get a better result :)

      Delete
  5. I am impressed with your inventiveness on the "free" version - it's pretty hard to make a meringue roulade without the eggs. Your Dorie version is absolutely gorgeous - it's a shame you didn't get to taste it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was so difficult to keep myself from licking that spatula :) :) I think that after this I am better person somehow hi hi !

      Delete
  6. Maria, I agree with everyone else who said your efforts should be awarded! I am so impressed! Both of your versions look lovely…hooray for you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Kathy ! My husband's colleagues asked me to make a roulade for them every week! I am the official roulade caterer of the embassy ! :) :)

      Delete
  7. You definitely should be rewarded for your efforts. Delicious post!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much ! They all licked their plates clean ! That was the best reward ! And I got to eat half of the "free" version myself and it was really yummy and most of all guilt free !!!!

      Delete
  8. Maria, I think if you move to Greece Parliaros should start being afraid of you. Honestly!!! Wonderful photos and it seems delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  9. You deserve a ribbon for your efforts here! Wow! I'm glad you could make to share...I'm sorry that the gluten free, lactose free version had a few hiccups. Hope you're having a nice weekend. I look forward to coming back here to visit :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow! I think you managed a very nice cake in spite of all the substitutions you had to make. Your straight up version looks perfect, too.

    ReplyDelete
  11. So much work to find all those substitutions - I cannot believe that you invested so much time and effort in baking two completely different versions of the Blueberry Mascarpone Roulade.

    Wonderful job! Sorry, I am a little behind in commenting but "better late than never"!

    ReplyDelete

Please share with me your thoughts about this post. Thank you for visiting.