This year, it was my turn to make the dessert for our Christmas dinner so naturally, it had to include chocolate and salted caramel. Now I am by no means a baking expert so I decided to consult the queen of all things sweet – Mary Berry. I found her chocolate roulade recipe here, which is what I used to make my sponge but decided to wing it (surprisingly successfully) to meet my own tastes. Gotta love a trier. I will admit that my final result was a bit “informal”, but it tasted bloody brilliant and I wish you luck if you’re giving it a go. For the sake of easiness, I’ve chucked her ingredient measure in here and I’ll explain how it goes.

Ingredients
Sponge:
175g/6oz of good quality dark chocolate
6 free range eggs
175g/6oz caster sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder/drinking chocolate (I used my Whittard Salted Caramel hot chocolate to level up)
Cream:
284ml/10fl oz of double or whipping cream
2 tbps sea salt & caramel chocolate spread (or any sort of salted caramel paste you can find)
2 tsp salted caramel flavouring
Coarse sea salt to taste
Decoration:
Icing sugar
Sea salt & caramel chocolate spread
Gold leaf

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Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C/160° fan/Gas 4
2. Line a swiss roll tin with greaseproof paper, taking care to fit it in the corners.
3. Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, taking care that the bowl isn’t in contact with the water, then leave to cool (put it in the fridge if you’re impatient)
4. Separate your eggs whites and yolks into two different bowls
5. Using an electric whisk, whisk the whites until they are stiff – they should be able to not fall out if you turned your bowl upside down although I wouldn’t test that one out if you’re not sure
6. Then add the caster sugar to the bowl with the egg yolks and whisk until it gets smooth and starts to thicken, Queen Mary says that when you lift the whisk out of the mixture it should leave a ribbon-like trail
7. Make sure the chocolate has properly cooled so you don’t cook the eggs but then pour the chocolate into the yolk and sugar mixture, gently fold together until well combined
8. Add a couple of spoonfuls of fluffy egg whites to your chocolatey mixture to loosen it up before adding all the whites and gently folding in, you don’t want to be too rough as you want to keep the air in there
9. Once combined, sift your drinking chocolate on top then fold that into the mixture
10. Pour the mixture into your lined tin and give it a wee wiggle to make sure it’s all even
11. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until risen and the top feels firm and slightly crisp, remove from the even and set aside until it has completely cooled
12. Now for the cream, in a large mixing bowl add the salted caramel paste and loosen it up a little with your electric whisk
13. Add the double or whipping cream and mix until it has combined with the paste, then add the salted caramel flavouring and mix, depending on how salty you like your caramel, you can now add some coarse sea salt to taste (be careful not to overdo it or you’ll have to redo it)
14. Whisk until the cream is whipped and thick then leave in the fridge until your sponge has cooled
15. Lay out a sheet of greaseproof paper and lightly dust with icing sugar, lay the sponge out upside down and spread an even layer of cream across the sponge, leaving a 2cm border all round
16. Roll it up, try your best to keep it even and tight using the greaseproof paper to help you, don’t worry if the outside cracks a little it makes it look more like a log
17. Finish with a sprinkle of icing sugar snow, a drizzle of your salted caramel paste and a few flecks of gold leaf if you’re feeling fancy and ta-da!