It’s December and you know what that means? Christmas!! As a French Canadian, it has always been tradition to make Christmas roll cakes every year! This year, I decided to share a super simple recipe for a chocolate roll cake that is gluten-free, sugar-free and low carb! It can also be dairy-free if you use coconut cream instead of dairy cream. I decided to fill this roll cake with some strawberries, but you could fill it with whatever type of fruit you want.
I chose to add a little bit of arrowroot to give it a spongy feeling. You can leave it out altogether, but I find a sponge cake made with only almond flour tastes a little bit eggy so this really helped it taste like a normal sponge cake. This cake is completely sweetened with stevia to make it low carb.
For the decorations, you are free to use whatever you want. I just used some plastic Christmas decorations that I found at the dollar store. I added a little bit of cocoa powder to the top, piped some whipped cream flowers and added some strawberries and plastic decoration. This recipe is super simple to make and it shouldn’t give you a hard time.
Christmas Roll Cake
Ingredients
Roll Cake
- 4 eggs
- 3/4 tsp stevia powder
- 1 tbsp arrowroot starch *
- 1/4 cup blanched almond flour 30g
- 1.5 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
Filling
- 300 ml heavy whipping cream or coconut cream
- 1/4 tsp stevia powder
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 275 g strawberries 1 pack
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
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Separate the egg whites and egg yolks into two different bowls. Add in 1/4 tsp of stevia powder to the egg whites and beat until stiff peaks form. Add 1/2 tsp of stevia powder to the egg yolks and beat for a minute until the egg yolks are nice and creamy. Add the almond meal, arrowoot and 1 tbsp cocoa powder to the egg yolks and mix with a silicone spatula. Do NOT use a whisk as the batter will get stuck inside. This will form a pretty thick batter, but make sure it's carefully mixed together.
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Add 1/4 of the egg whites to the egg yolk mixture and mix together until all of the chocolate mixture has mixed to the egg whites and nothing is stuck to the bowl. Add the next 1/4 of the egg whites and gently fold it in. Repeat this step for the last two quarter egg whites.
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Pour the roll cake mixture over a baking tray (I used a 25x30cm one) covered with parchment paper and make sure the batter is evenly distributed everywhere. Place the tray into the oven on the middle rack and bake for 12 minutes. Take it out of the oven, carefully roll the sponge cake up into a roll with the parchment paper still on and let it completely cool down.
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While the cake is cooling down, make the whipping cream. Add the cream to a large bowl and start mixing for about a minute. Once the cream starts to thicken a little, add stevia powder and vanilla to a bowl and beat until whipped.
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Dice the strawberries and leave maybe 2-3 whole ones for the top of the cake (up to you).
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Once the cake is cooled, roll it out and peel the parchment paper off the cake.
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Spread 2/3 of the whipping cream over the cake and evenly top with some strawberry pieces.
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Roll the cake up gently and place it over the serving dish of your choice. I like to cut the ends of the cake with a bread knife so that it is perfectly equal on both sides. Sieve 1/2 tbsp of cocoa powder over the entire cake.
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With the remaining 1/3 of the whipping cream and strawberries, design the cake as you wish with or without plastic decorations!
Recipe Notes
*Feel free to use coconut cream if you want a dairy-free version.
**You can leave out the arrowroot, but the cake won't be as 'spongy' and will be more eggy.
Hi I’m just wondering dose the cake hold it self good or it comes out crumby and fall a part
It looks so good thank you for sharing
It holds itself no problem!