Charlotte Royale Bombe Glacée...a SwissRoll IceCream cake!

This is one knockout dessert for any occasion, especially good for a hot summer day. I made this Swiss Roll Ice-cream cake aka Charlotte Royale , for a BBQ party we had few months back. I'd been wanting to make this ever since I saw this online somewhere. I must say it looked simply striking and tasted even better.

A Charlotte Royale , traditionally, has a bavarian creme filling , surrounded by swiss rolls. Various other filling options are whipped cream /custard /mousse/ fruit .
The name of Bombe Glacée also suits this dessert well. [A bombe glacée or simply a bombe in English, is an ice cream dessert frozen in a spherical mould so as to resemble a cannonball, hence the name : Source- Wikipedia]
Hence this dessert can be perfectly called : Charlotte Royale Bombe Glacée ;-)

Well this was my first attempt at making a Swiss Roll Cake too, but since I had to get this dessert done, I din't get enough time to take better pics of my Swiss Roll. Next time perhaps!
But I must share the fact that my first attempt at baking a Swiss Roll cake failed, I ended up with a biscuit like cake, which I could never roll. So I tried again, reducing the baking time, and it worked like a charm.

I used the recipe and technique for the Swiss Roll cake from the book "Illustrated Step-by-Step Baking" by Caroline Bretherton , but I used cake flour and added an extra egg as I wanted to finish it :-)
The whole process of baking the cake, cooling it, filling the roll and assembling the Charlotte and freezing again took me about 4-5hrs but it was totally worth it. 

Swiss Roll Cake Recipe
You'll need:
All purpose flour - 1/2 cup [ I used Cake flour  ]
Eggs - 3 ( I used  4)
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Strawberry jam - around 6-8 tblsp

* [ 1 cup Cake flour = 3/4 cup All-purpose flour + 2 Tblsp Cornflour ]

Directions:
Baking the cake:
1. Pre-heat your oven to 400F and apply some butter over a 17"x11" cookie sheet pan and place a parchment paper over it. Again apply butter over the parchmnet paper and dust it with all-purpose flour, discarding any excess and keep aside.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients- Cake flour and baking powder.
3. Place a heatproof bowl over a vessel with some simmering water. (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water)
4. Beat together on high speed the eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt  under creamy and smooth, around 5-7 minutes.
5. Take it off the heat and continue to beat for another 2-3 minutes until the mixture has cooled down. (It should now resemble the texture of smooth whipped cream )
6. Using a spatula, slowly fold in the dry ingredients. Do not over mix, or you will deflate the egss.
7. Pour the cake batter over the sheet pan and spread it evenly across the pan using an offset spatula or spoon.
8. Bake for 6-10 mins until toothpick inserted springs back clean. (Mine was done in 6 minutes, so it would'nt harm to check a few minutes before the set time)

Rolling the cake:
1. Immediately upon removing from the oven, invert the cake over a clean kitchen towel dusted with powdered sugar and carefully remove the parchment paper. (The towel should be larger than your cake)
2. Again dust with powdered sugar over the top , keeping one small end of the towel inside the cake and start rolling your cake. Be gentle yet firm and make sure your cake does not tear.
(I rolled mine with the longer side facing me, as I wanted a long swiss roll with small slices. If you roll with the shorter end facing you, you will have a thicker swiss roll with bigger slices.)
3. Allow the cake to cool completely on a wire rack.
4. Once cooled slowly unroll and add your filling (I used store-bought strawberry jam) and roll again very carefully without the kitchen towel and place the roll with seam side down.
5. Refrigerate or Freeze until required in a plastic wrap. (A chilled cake is easier to assemble)

Charlotte Royale Bombe Glacée
You'll need
Swiss Roll cake
IceCream - for filling (I used both Vanilla and Strawberry flavor )
Dome shaped bowl for assembling
Plastic wrap
Knife - to slice the swiss roll ;-)

Assembly:
1. Use a dome shaped bowl (I used my 1qt size Pyrex glass bowl)
2. Line it with cling wrap or plastic wrap. Line carefully along the inside of the dome so the the plastic wrap exactly takes the shape of the bowl.
3. Cut the Swiss Roll into individual slices and start by placing a slice in the centre of the bowl. Continue placing more slices around the centre slice (its best if all slices are kept such that seam side is facing down on the centre slice and use a Serrated knife to avoid too much crumbling)
4. Tightly press each slice together so that there are no gaps, else your filling will ooze out from the gaps.
5. Finally fill in your swiss roll bowl with Ice-cream / mousse / fudge or any filling of your choice. (I used  store bought vanilla icecream and strawberry icecream for my filling)
6. You can cover the top with more slices of swiss roll, to give a closure to your filling, but this step is optional.
7. Freeze for 2-3 hours before use and serve chilled!!

Suggestions: If your last layer is sticking out of the bowl, trim the end so that its exactly coincides with the rim of the bowl. (I squeezed mine into fitting ;-) )

Well the pics were taken in a hurry, as I dint want the ice-cream to melt , photographing anything with ice-cream can be quite a challenge, specially on a hot summer day.

This is definitely a slice of heaven!!!

It was so much fun seeing this dessert come together. It definitely had a 'WOW' factor at the bbq party and both kids and adults dug into it....The whole room was silent as each one relished on this super yummy cool and creamy ice-cream cake ;-) Need I say more?
I chose vanilla and strawberry ice-cream as my Swiss roll was a vanilla sponge filled with strawberry Jam, and the combo was excellent  :-)

More fun summer recipes coming up...though here in Minneapolis summer seems to be slowly getting over, I'm still trying to make the most of it by trying out various grilling recipes, and simple icy-cold lemonade drinks , so stay tuned!!

-Manju