Warning: This pumpkin roll can be addictive, especially to uncles named Carl. If you share this pumpkin roll with others, they will expect you to make it for them every Thanksgiving. Bake with care.
Pumpkin Roll With Cream Cheese Filling
To make the pumpkin roll cake part, you will need:
3 eggs (beaten but not bruised)
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup canned pumpkin
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup flour
1 cup chopped nuts (I prefer pecans chopped into “cookie pieces.”)
wax paper
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl, starting with the eggs, sugar, pumpkin and cinnamon and then adding in the dry ingredients. Stir in the nuts last.
Grease a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet, or spray it with nonstick spray. (A completely flat cookie sheet won’t work; you need one with edges all the way around so that the pumpkin-roll cake batter won’t flood onto your floor.) After you grease the cookie sheet, line it with waxed paper. Now grease or spray the top of the wax paper.
Pour the pumpkin-roll cake batter onto the cookie sheet on top of the wax paper. Spread it with a spatula and/or lightly tap the pan on the counter to ensure that the batter is distributed evenly in the pan.
Bake for 15 minutes. While your pumpkin-roll cake is baking, sprinkle a clean dishtowel with powdered sugar. Yes, you read it right. Sprinkle powdered sugar evenly over a clean dishtowel, and then lay it out flat on the counter. A smooth dishtowel works the best (such as a flour sack); if it is really rough, it will stick to your pumpkin roll cake.
When your oven timer sounds, turn out the baked pumpkin-roll cake onto the towel. Carefully remove the wax paper. While the pumpkin-roll cake is still hot, carefully roll it up in the towel to cool. I roll it lengthwise to yield more pieces of tasty pumpkin roll. Rolling it lengthwise also produces a roll with a thicker ribbon of cream cheese filling.
While the pumpkin-roll cake is cooling, make the cream cheese filling. To make the cream cheese filling, you will need:
8 ounces cream cheese (softened)
2 teaspoons melted margarine or butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar
Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat them just until creamy. Be sure not to overmix or your filling will be too runny.
When your pumpkin-roll cake is cool, very carefully unroll it enough so that you can spread the cream cheese filling on it evenly. Then, roll it back up again, and you’ve got yourself a pumpkin roll with delicious cream cheese filling.
If you don’t eat it all immediately (and you will want to), store it in the refrigerator. I like to cut each roll in half and freeze them. Nothing is better than a piece of pumpkin roll just out of the freezer, except maybe pumpkin roll right out of the refrigerator.
