How to make the perfect chocolate roulade – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to Make the Perfect...

I try to approach these chronicles with an open mind: to engage the spirit of strict scientific neutrality in the pursuit of culinary perfection. Yet this week, as I rolled roulade after roulade, the whipped cream gently spilling onto the counter in front of me, I realized that I was not just striving for perfection, but trying to recreate a sensory memory. very specific decades old. The first mention of the chocolate roulade in UK newspaper archives was in 1976, but the references peak in the late 1990s when it also seemed to pop up on every special occasion I attended as a foodie teenager. , often accompanied by an equally trendy fruit coulis.

Strictly speaking, of course, a roulade simply refers to anything that is rolled – beef olives are roulades, as are involtini and this sour cream cheese. herbs and garlic – but these roulades were still both sweet and rich enough to react badly to ill-advised glasses of wine taken beforehand. They were also so delicious that we didn't care. But even if you don't have the same fond memories, a roulade has several advantages to recommend it as a festive dessert: it can be prepared in advance, it is often gluten-free and it looks great. So go retro this Christmas - it's a classic for a reason.

As if to reinforce the old-school character of the task, recipes recommended to me by the mothers of Classmates include big names such as Delia Smith, Lady Claire Macdonald, Mary Berry, the late Joyce Molyneux and the Leiths Baking Bible, which I pass on to you in the spirit of seasonal generosity.

Chantal Coady, founder of Rococo Chocolates, explains in her 2003 book Real Chocolate that, "for some reason I seem to be surrounded by people with special dietary needs," her roulade is both gluten-free and dairy-free -free, using ground almonds instead of flour. In fact, it turns out that all the recipes I try are gluten-free: Berry and Leiths omit flour altogether, while Harry Eastwood's version, in his book Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache, uses rice flour and - in keeping with the healthy cooking theme of his book - grated sweet potato for moisture. Eastwood's is the lightest, full of flavor but flexible enough to roll up without a single crack, and Coady's is the densest and richest, with a slightly grainy, nutty sweetness that works well with chocolate. Unless you like that perfect spiral roll, though, I'd recommend keeping things s...