Swedish Rulltårta with Roasted Strawberries and Vanilla Cream

This Swedish Rulltårta is the perfect summer celebration cake. It’s easy to make and assemble, but looks impressive with its lovely layers of golden cake, fruit and cream. And it can be made completely ahead of time, one of the best qualities in a dessert, in my opinion.

What is a Rulltårta?

A rulltårta is basically a Swedish version of the American jelly roll cake. A thin, tender sponge cake is wrapped around a filling, usually some kind of fruit preserve. I’ve taken things up a notch here by including a combination of vanilla pastry cream and homemade roasted strawberries for the filling, the same fillings that I use for my show-stopping Scandinavian Strawberry Cream Cake. These homemade fillings involve a couple of extra steps but quite worth it, I assure you. The classic pairing of strawberries and cream is wonderful in this cake.

Making a Pliable, Delicious Cake

The trick with the rulltårta is that the cake itself must be pliable enough to roll up without cracking or breaking. Most recipes for rulltårta use a sponge cake which is heavy on eggs. The eggs help retain that flexible, rollable quality that makes this cake a success. But most sponge cakes do not contain any fat in the form of butter or oil, which can lead to a dry and, as the name would suggest, spongy texture. After trying a few of these and being a little underwhelmed with the results, I began doing a little research. I found a few recipes for jelly rolls that included a little melted butter in the mix and decided to give that a try. Success! I now had a moist, flexible cake that rolled up beautifully and had a lovely taste and texture.

Successful Rolling Techniques

Once you get the hang of this rulltårta, it really is simple to put together. BUT, as with many baking projects, success comes from using the proper technique. Here are my suggestions for a successful cake roll every time:

• Use the right cake recipe. As I said above, this cake is more pliable than most, thanks to the addition of several eggs. This flexibility is important to getting the cake to roll up nicely.
• Use baking spray to prepare the pan, and make sure that it is spread evenly. This cake is baked in a half sheet pan (12 x18) and it will release easily if you spray the pan with baking spray, cover it with a layer of parchment and then spray the parchment. I then use my fingers or a brush to make sure that the parchment and the sides of the pan are evenly coated with baking spray. This will help keep the cake from sticking to the pan or the parchment after it is baked.
• While it is still warm, roll the cake in a dish towel generously dusted with powdered sugar. This is an absolutely critical step. The cake must be rolled while it is still quite warm from the oven. It will crack and break if you try to roll it once it is cool. Since the cake is too warm to assemble with the fillings at first, it is wrapped in a cotton dish towel (NOT terry cloth) until it is cool enough to fill. This sets the rolled shape that we are ultimately looking for. The powdered sugar acts like flour here and keeps the cake from sticking to the towel.

• Once the cake is cool, carefully unroll it and spread your fillings on top, leaving a one inch border around the sides. For this recipe, it works well to put down a layer of vanilla cream and the strawberries on top. And don’t overfill! A light layer of pastry cream and about a cup of fruit filling is really all you need. Otherwise it will just squeeze out the sides when you try to roll it back together.
• Carefully roll the cake up, leaving the dish towel behind. This should go smoothly assuming that you were generous enough in your sprinkling of powdered sugar on the towel.
• Transfer to a serving platter using a two spatulas, one at the top of the roll and one at bottom, on opposite sides of the cake. This is enough support to get it from the work surface to a pretty serving tray.

Other Filling Ideas

While this roasted strawberry filling is out of this world, you can easily vary this cake with the seasons as fruit availability changes. Other homemade fruit fillings for you to consider:

• Blueberry Cardamom Compote
• Roasted Pear Compote with Cardamom, Vanilla and Fresh Ginger
• Roasted Peach Ginger Compote
• Roasted Strawberry Rhubarb Compote

You could be making making different versions of this cake all year long!

I hope you give this cake a try during this strawberry season! It is so simple, delicious and beautiful! Please let me know if you give it a try in the comments below. I love hearing your feedback!

Print