Pumpkin Rolls
It's almost a religion...for me

When I first saw a pumpkin roll I thought to myself, well wait a sec, what is that crazy looking orange cake looking masterpiece on the dessert table trying to masquerade as a larger version of the Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll? A pumpkin roll, the baker of the marvel in front of me exclaimed! A what? Yeah, I wasn't one of those kids who grew up with Yule Logs like some of my readers therefore a rolled cake that was not produced by the Little Debbie Company (Corporation?) was something that I was not at all familiar with!

Since I was first introduced to the veritable eye catching dessert that is the pumpkin roll, and all rolled cakes for that matter, I have been making a variation of the pumpkin roll for the holidays. I used to make it more times a year, but these days it's reserved for Thanksgiving. 

During the first several years of which I made the pumpkin roll it was always trial and error. Some of them came out great, while others came out pretty flat or even square and not visually appealing at all. After roughly 15 years of practice, yes I'm serious, I'd consider myself somewhat of an expert on making the pumpkin roll.

The recipe that I use is a variation of the pumpkin roll recipe found on Libby's Pumpkin website. The link to a recipe that I would recommend can be found at the following link.

A few of the things I change from the recipe found on Libby's website is, forget about 10x15 pans, I don't even know where to find a 10x15 pan. The jelly roll pans that I have are 12x17 and they are all I have ever used when making Pumpkin Rolls. Also, let's talk about cheesecloth. Do you have paper towels? Do you have some powdered sugar to sprinkle enough of to cover said paper towels? Good! Then do you don't need any fancy shmancy cheese cloth either! I also don't use nuts, I'm not much of a nut person when combined with pumpkin, but if you're into nuts - go ahead and add some!

A fairly simple recipe turns out to be incredibly beautiful with practice and practice only. I can only tell you the following; You need to spread the batter as evenly as possible on your parchment lined 12x17 jelly roll pan and for heaven's sake do not over bake it. You don't want it to crack. Also, flip it over as fast as possible straight from the oven onto the aforementioned powdered sugar covered paper towels and roll it up as tightly and as fast as you can! Let it cool. I will repeat, let it cool! If you try to spread the delicious filling/frosting while it's still warm it's not going to roll up looking pretty and let's be honest, for a dessert like this one, looking pretty is the goal. I'll tell you though, I've made pumpkin lovers out of non-pumpkin lovers with this recipe. I've had people tell me there isn't pumpkin in that - I hate pumpkin! Some people just don't have the penchant for pumpkin like I do, I suppose. 

Feast your eyes on the splendor that was this years pumpkin roll sliced up below on a dessert platter for Thanksgiving. Ordinarily I sprinkle it with powdered sugar before serving, but I just didn't think that it was necessary this year!