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Lemon Meringue Cake Roll

Imagine Lemon Meringue Pie in cake form and you’ve got a lemon meringue cake roll.  Angel food cake filled with tart lemon curd and topped with meringue. It’s an elegant dish that whips up pretty quickly – perfect for Easter or Mother’s Day.

Lemon Meringue Cake Roll

This week I’m going to two blogging conferences so I’ve been baking up a storm to have some things on hand while I’m gone.  Yesterday it was dark chocolate raspberry bread pudding and peanut butter oreo stuffed brownies. Today I made two cake rolls and a brownie bottom triple chocolate mousse pie.

I’ve been making a lot of things with egg yolks lately. I made two bread puddings that had 7 yolks each in them, some lime curd, chocolate mousse, and I’m not even sure what else. The end result was at least 2 dozen egg whites in my fridge.

Time to make some angel food cake or meringues. Then I noticed in my Joy of Cooking, that you can use angel food cake batter to make cake rolls. I had lemon curd in the fridge so lemon meringue cake roll it was!

Lemon Meringue Cake Roll Slice

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about how well an angel food cake would roll. Sure, it’s spongy but what happens when you bake it in a sheet pan? I was worried it might crack like meringue. Turns out the edges did crack a little but it rolls really easily.

If you’ve never made an angel food cake, it’s basically meringue with a little flour added in for structure. Normally you don’t grease the pan when you make an angel food cake because the cake has to grip the sides of the pan in order to rise. Jelly roll pans typically don’t have removable bottoms. So you grease the bottom of the pan and line it with parchment paper and then grease the parchment paper.  My cakes lifted right out of the pan for cooling.

I filled my lemon meringue cake roll with lemon curd I made a few weeks ago. I didn’t wait for my cake to cool entirely because I wanted it to be flexible. The cake was lukewarm when I spread the lemon curd on top so the lemon curd spread pretty easily and the cake rolled nicely.

Since the lemon curd doesn’t have a lot of structure, the cake is a little flat. Not to worry. Top with a little meringue and use a fork or spatula to make bark patterns. Zap it in a hot oven for a few minutes to brown and you’ve got a beautiful log cake.

All in all, it took me less than an hour to make this lemon meringue roll cake and it was great with my afternoon tea.

Yield: 12 servings

Lemon Meringue Cake Roll

Lemon Meringue Cake Roll
Prep Time 40 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

  • ½ cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
  • ½ cup flour
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 5 large egg whites (a little over ¾ cup), room temperature
  • ½ tablespoon water
  • ½ tablespoon lemon juice
  • ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
  • ¼ teaspoon vanilla
  • Powdered sugar for dusting the cake
  • 1 ½ - 2 cups lemon curd

Meringue

  • 2 egg whites room temperature
  • ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 3 tablespoons sugar

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
  2. Prepare a half sheet jelly roll pan by greasing the bottom with cooking oil. Place a sheet of parchment paper on top and grease the top of the parchment). I cut the parchment so that it fits exactly in the bottom of the pan width-wise but is a little longer than the length so the ends hang over but it lies flat in the bottom of the pan. This makes it easy to remove the cake after baking. Don't grease the sides of the pan. Set aside.
  3. Sift flour and 2 tablespoons sugar together. Set aside.
  4. Place egg whites, water and lemon juice in a large bowl and beat until frothy. Add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Add vanilla.
  5. Gradually beat in sugar 1 tablespoon at a time until stiff but not dry peaks form.
  6. Gently sift about ¼ of the flour mixture onto the egg whites and fold in gently with a spatula. Repeat until all the flour is incorporated.
  7. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan being careful not to deflate it too much. I poured it in a line in the middle of the pan and spread out from the center to the edges.
  8. Bake for 15 minutes. Top should be just golden and springy to the touch.
  9. Use a sharp knife to loosen edges of cake. Dust top with powdered sugar and lay another piece of parchment on top. Invert to remove from pan. Carefully peel off the parchment that is on top and discard.
  10. Let the cake cool until lukewarm (this only took about 10 minutes). Spread a generous amount of lemon curd over the top of the cake and the roll the cake into a log. I gently folded one edge over and then pulled up on the parchment paper under the cake to roll it along. When you get to the end, fold the parchment paper over the top of the cake and place a ruler on top along the edge of the cake. Reach under the top parchment and ruler and grab the bottom parchment paper. While gently pushing the ruler in on the top parchment, pull on the bottom one. This tightens the spiral.
  11. Wrap in the parchment and refrigerate while you make the meringue. Turn oven up to 400°F
  12. Put 2 egg whites in a bowl and beat until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar and beat until stiff but not dry peaks form
  13. Place cake roll on a parchment lined baking sheet and cover the outside with meringue. I used a small spatula and made swirl patterns like tree bark. You can also make bark designs with a fork.
  14. Place cake in hot oven and bake until meringue turns golden brown on the peaks (about 5 minutes). Refrigerate until ready to serve.
You might also like

Vanilla Blueberry Cake Roll

Lemon Curd Cake

Lemon Meringue Rice Crispy Treats

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Comments

  1. JUDY ROBERTS says

    April 3, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    ALL YOUR RECIPES SOUND WONDERFUL. I HOPE TO TRY SOME OF THEM FOR EASTER. THANK YOU FOR POSTING THEM AND LETTING ME JOIN YOUR POST. JUDY POPLIN ROBERTS

    • Gail Dickinson says

      April 3, 2017 at 2:22 pm

      Thanks so much for stopping by Judy. I hope you enjoy them. Let us know how they turn out 🙂