Ask Nancy

Jelly roll cakes can be tricky! Before turning the cake onto your towel, make sure you generously sprinkle the towel with confectioners’ sugar (cocoa powder if your cake is chocolate). The more the better, in this case! This will keep the cake from sticking, which then cracks the cake when unrolling. Then, make sure you follow recipe instructions exactly, in rolling, unrolling, then re-rolling your cake. It may seem involved, but a cake that has cooled too much or not enough can crack very easily. That, though, means that sometimes you may still get cracking. But, don’t worry! Once filled, re-rolled, then iced, no one will notice!