Christmas dessert

You know those chocolate yule logs that could crush a yule mule? It strikes me that this chocolate roll, above, lighter and unfrosted, is a very good alternative to that icing-rich, ickily sweet Christmas confection. I hate sticky icing sugar (frosting), but I love fruit and I love fruit combined with chocolate cake. Very Black Forest-y.

I made this chocolate roll the other evening. It's on page 119 of 66 Square Feet - A Delicious Life (and yes, I had to follow my own recipe - one forgets...how many spoons of cocoa powder?), to take to my cousin's for supper, thinking, Ooh, won't they be impressed. Turns out I took the same roll to them the last time I had visited. Oh well, at least it was tested on discerning guinea pigs.

It is peak cherry season in Cape Town. The fruits are now big and fat and firm and blackly sweet. So, instead of using red currant jam, as my recipe stipulates, I used a cup of the halved and stoned fruit. But I think that a Northern Hemisphere, chilly Christmas version could be made with cranberry jelly, instead. I think it would be yummy.

The chocolate, the white cream, the red filling. Hm, hm, hm.

And I think some shaved orange-inspired and excellent chocolate over the top would be an improvement.