Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Filling

'Tis the season for pumpkin-flavored everything.  Pumpkin muffins, pumpkin chocolates, pumpkin coffee.

I often wonder if the food items are really pumpkin-flavored or pumpkin spice flavored.

As in, cinnamon-ginger-and-nutmeg. 

Big difference---pumpkin is wet, mushy, kinda-sorta-sweet but needs a kick.  Add the spices and it's aaaahhhhhh........yum.

I decided to jump onto the pumpkin wagon and try out a recipe I cut out of People magazine last year.  People regularly features recipes from celebrities, or recipes from restaurants owned by celebrities, or recipes from restaurants where celebrities eat, or--in this case--recipes from relatives of celebrities.

This recipe is Broadway (and Glee! ) star Kristin Chenoweth's mother's recipe for Pumpkin Roll.

Playlist

• "Runaround".....Blues Traveler
• "Perfect Situation".........Weezer
• "Naive".......The Kooks
• "No One Knows"......Queens Of The Stone Age
• "All The Small Things"........Blink 182
• "Soil To The Sun"......Cage The Elephant
• "Dope Nose"......Weezer
• "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?".....Jet
• "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams".......Green Day
• "Teenagers"........My Chemical Romance

Pumpkin Roll (Adapted from People Magazine, Serves 10)
Printable Recipe

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Sift Together:

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup finely chopped pecans (I omitted these, my family does not like nuts!)

Filling:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 8 oz. cream cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Gather your ingredients.

Grease and flour a 15 x 10 x 2-in jelly roll pan.  I buttered it, put about 1/2 teaspoon of flour into it and tapped it around.  Oops, missed a couple of spots.

Line with waxed paper or parchment paper.

(An alternate method would be to use non-stick cooking spray, however, the wax paper/parchment paper may stick to the cake if you use this method!)

Sift together the dry ingredients.  Flour.......

.......baking powder......

......ginger, cinnamon........

........nutmeg (oh my goodness, this smells so good!)...........

.....and salt.  You will noticed I didn't sift, I just dumped them all into a bowl.

Then I whisked them together.

And now they are nicely combined.

Beat eggs at high speed for five minutes.

They will be all frothy-foamy when  you are done.

Gradually add sugar.

Stir in lemon juice.....

......and pumpkin.

Stir until combined.

Fold sifted ingredients into pumpkin mixture.

After it's all mixed........

........spread the batter into your prepared baking pan.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until it springs back when lightly touched (or test it with a toothpick).  Remove from oven.  Let cake sit in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out on a clean tea towel sprinkled with powdered sugar.  (That's what the recipe says.  I dusted sugar onto the cake instead; I thought it would be easier that way.)

Instead of "turning the cake out onto a towel" (I could see myself dropping the cake if I tried that!), I covered the pan snugly with a towel, and carefully flipped it over.

Like this.

Then I lifted off the pan, and carefully removed the wax paper.

While cake is still warm, roll up in the towel, this will help to shape it so that it doesn't crumble after you frost it.  Rolling it lengthwise will give you more servings but they will be small than if you roll it widthwise.  (I partially wrapped the cake with the towel before I started to roll it, so that it wouldn't stick to itself.)

Here it is.

While the cake continues to cool,  beat filling ingredients until smooth.

Done.

When the cake has cooled, unroll and spread with filling.

I left about an inch at the far end without frosting.  In the past, I have had the filling get all squished out if I frosted it too close to the edge.

Reroll the cake (without the towel).

Cover with plastic wrap. (To do this, I placed the plastic wrap next to the cake and rolled it onto the plastic wrap, that way I didn't have to lift the cake.  I am sure if I lifted it, it would have broken.)

Once the cake was on the plastic wrap, I wrapped it.........

And then rolled it onto a cutting board before putting it in the refrigerator.  Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Remove it from the refrigerator when you are ready to serve.  Looking good!

Cut into slices, and enjoy!