Close your eyes:
Imagine you are eating a giant, gooey powdered jelly doughnut…
Welcome to reality.
Looks fancy… but this jelly roll is ridiculously simple to make.
- It’s single-serving.
- Takes just 10 minutes
- It can even be fat-free.
I’ve always been intimidated by jelly roll cakes, but this recipe is one of the easiest things I’ve ever made. So even if you don’t think you can cook, you’ll probably have no trouble making this. And it’ll impress the socks off of everyone you know!
Skinny Mini Jelly Roll Cake
(Serves 1-2)
- 1/2 cup ww pastry flour, or white or spelt flour (70g) (For a gf version, use this: gluten-free option.)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 100g water or other liquid (That’s 1/3 cup plus 1 T plus 1 tsp)
- 2 packets stevia (or omit and use 2 tbsp liquid sweetener–such as agave or honey–and decrease water by that amount)
- 2 tablespoons applesauce
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
Combine all dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, combine wet (including applesauce). Mix wet into dry, but don’t overmix. Pour into a greased 8-in circle pan or a rectangular pan. (Be sure to grease it very well, or the cake won’t come out.) Cook for 10 minutes in a NON-preheated oven at 420F. (You might need to cook it longer, depending on your oven.) Let cool ten minutes before removing cake from pan. Then cut off all four edges so it forms a rectangle (if you used the circle pan). Spread on jam, or whatever else you wish, and roll it up. It’s that easy!
You can fill this single-serving cake with anything you can imagine: Peanut butter, chocolate chips, fresh berries, frosting, coconut butter, etc.
Shown above, with jam and Sugar-Free Powdered Sugar.
Question of the Day:
Do you consider yourself a good cook?
Or are you a walking disaster in the kitchen? Do you like to cook elaborate meals? Or are tv dinners and Chinese takeout your specialties?
P.S. I’m shocked so many of you voted for the non-chocolate recipe yesterday. What am I going to do with you guys?? 😉
just made this with my 3 year old. We live in CT and are COMPLETELY snowed in. We’ll be enjoying this treat while we watch some form of Disney movie 🙂
in addition: when i rolled it up, it broke apart… what did i do wrong? the cake seems thicker than yours in the pic. i used all suggested ingredients and followed instructions as written. (sidebar, it’s still delicious, even though it’s falling apart!)
Hi Amy,
Some other people have been reporting this as well… I have made it 5 times now and haven’t had a problem yet .
Maybe it is a climate thing? That is all I can think of… What flour are you using?
HI Katie,
I just made this (and I apologize if this question has been asked 10 times already – though I didn’t see it), but I was unable to roll after it had cooled. The cake just crumbled and split immediately. It’s not too dry just to eat on it’s on – pretty moist actually. Do you think it was maybe too thick? Or cooked too long?
Thanks!
Some other people have been reporting this as well… I have made it 5 times now and haven’t had a problem yet :(.
Maybe it is a climate thing? That is all I can think of… What flour are you using?
Mine broke…
I just made this recipe this morning! OMG it is so good! I put my homemade chocolate hazelnut spread on with strawberry jelly! I’m in heaven!! Recipe came out just great! Thanks Katie!
Allrecipes.com cake pan size conversions article says to use an 8″ x 4″ loaf pan for an 8″ pan. The loaf pan is deeper than the round pan but I think it would work for this. Did you use a rectangular pan or a round one? (Excuse this question if you’ve already answered it a gazzilion times. I haven’t read any comments on this recipe yet. My bad!)
In the past when I’ve made the “normal” sized jelly roll, I used parchment paper to line the bottom of the pan so that the cake would come out easily. My mother used waxed paper but I don’t know if that was because that is all she had or what. I do remember, though, that the cake and waxed paper came out of the pan easily and she just gently rolled up the cake with the waxed paper in the roll until it cooled. It was easier to roll when warm. We wouldn’t want to have parts of the cake sticking in the pan for a jelly roll! It would be difficult, if not impossible, to fix those holes.
WOW! Wonderful and well deserved.
Have you tried some arrowroot powder for leavening instead of extra baking soda? I don’t know if my baking soda has an unusually strong flavor, but your recipes seem to turn out with too much baking soda flavor.
Ok, I realized that this recipe calls for baking powder, not soda. So, that probably makes a difference in taste. But I also thought the best healthy chocolate chip cookies tasted of baking soda. Have you experimented with arrowroot powder?
I added some cocoa powder to the roll batter along with a dash of cinnamon and substituted mashed banana for the applesauce. As for the filling I used mashed up banana with a bit of cinnamon/nutmeg in it, and boy was it good! 🙂