The great peach bellini swiss roll FAIL of 2021. Or, expectations vs. reality.

Well.

I have been defeated.

If you are looking for a recipe, you are going to want to just keep on scrolling. This is not a cute story of success with a beautiful picture and a sassily-worded recipe. No. This is a story of a girl, a bottle of champagne, and failure.

I have been working really hard on my blog for the past month or so, making lots of changes and trying to up the professionalism factor. One of the things that I have really been working on is consistency, so if you haven’t noticed I’ve been doing 2 recipe posts a week. Matt and I had plans to go on spring break this week, though, so I was feeling a lot of pressure in the weeks leading up to the trip to try to get ahead on the blog. I figured, if I could do all the baking and writing before we left, I could preset everything to post while I was gone and just chill on the beach without a care. If only I had known.

I knew I wanted to do another recipe for my Boozy Bakes series, and a peach bellini sounded oh-so-refreshing while I was salivating for Spring Break. I also wanted to do something other than cupcakes, although in retrospect I should’ve just stuck with something easy.

Here’s a look at my first swiss roll. And this photo is old school Kelly Likes to Bake. That’s right, a classy grainy iphone photo that hasn’t even been retouched with a filter. I was far too fed up to do any work on this roll.

I know what you’re thinking. Doesn’t look too bad, right?

If only it tasted good.

The problems with this particular roll began a few weeks ago, when I discovered “champagne extract” when cruising on Amazon. (Someone, please, change my password and don’t tell me what it is.). I tried to infuse the champagne flavor in the sponge, and not only did it not actually impart any champagne flavor, I also smashed the bottle of extract all over my kitchen floor. The resulting smell was deeply medicinal, artificial, and seemingly permanently attached to my kitchen.

Will my tile floor ever be the same?

I also tried to do one of those designs on the bottom of the sponge so that it would look fancy and impressive when rolled up. See those little orange specks in the picture?

Yeah, me neither.

So that was a fail.

I also wanted to include fresh fruit, so I just chopped up fresh peaches and rolled them up in the (overbaked) sponge. They mostly just tasted like…crunchy water? The definitely had no actual flavor that could stand up to the gallon of whipped cream I decided (for some reason) to roll up in the cake.

So, to sum things up: Swiss roll number one: Overbaked, dry, no design, tastes faintly of cough syrup, no peach or champagne flavor, waaaaaay too much plain whipped cream.

I decided round two of recipe development would be better. Another gross iphone picture is coming. Are you ready? Avert your eyes if you are squeamish, because this monster is not pretty.

Yeah. So that’s frustrating.

Listen, lots of things went better with this one and it wound up tasting really good, so at least I learned some things. I reduced half a bottle of champagne down into a syrup and mixing it into my whipped cream, and that was an EXCELLENT decision. The design on the outside also turned out, and I used peach jam in addition to fresh peaches, which I think upped the peach flavor and made the whole thing better.

Unfortunately, it then imploded into a pile of goo.

I also stabbed a hole into my enormous bag of sugar and had to repair it with painters tape after yelling for my husband to STOP PLAYING VIDEO GAMES AND HELP ME THERE’S SUGAR EVERYWHERE.

Why did my cake roll fail?

Oh, who knows. Maybe I undermixed or underbaked the cake. Maybe I filled it when it was too warm. Maybe the underlying recipe is flawed and I just need to keep trying.

Or, maybe this whole bellini project is doomed and I should just give up on it and bake cookies.

I sent a picture to my dear friend Jake, who is my food inspiration and a constant source of validation and reassurance. I joked that it was split in two, and he responded: “Makes it easier to share.” Very true, and a really nice perspective in a moment that I was feeling discouraged.

Expectation: Peach Bellini Swiss Roll Cake. Reality: a humbling lesson in the challenges of recipe development.

I’ll try again and post this recipe eventually.

Meanwhile, Matt and I are on vacation in Panama City, and I am deeply grateful for the chance to relax, recharge, and get my mind right to try rethink how I can influence the culture in my classroom and finish this year strong. I am not really happy with the way the last few days of rehearsals went, but I know we can all do better.

Expectation: Normal 2020-2021 school year. Reality: We’re all just holding on for dear life and doing the best we can.

I’m also enjoying getting new recipe ideas down here from lots of awesome local restaurants. Look forward to some fruit in your future, you guys.

To my fellow teachers and students: Enjoy your spring breaks. We all deserve a little good karma.