I had never made a pumpkin roll, or any type of roll for that matter and I was really excited to try it. I remember my mother making a chocolate roll I believe, but I never really paid attention to how she made it. I was surprised to read that you needed to roll the cake up in a towel, but you actually do. It makes sense when you think about it. If you were to wait for it to cool, it wouldn’t roll. If you were to roll it warm without the towel it would just stick together. You learn something new everyday!
My son takes a remote cooking class through school and today’s recipe was this pumpkin roll, which I believe is the Libby’s pumpkin recipe. He was not as excited as I was, of course. Since it is a remote class I am always in the kitchen helping him cook and giving him little pointers if he needs them, and today was a learning day for me too! I will definitely make this recipe again because it was fairly easy, and delicious!
I know I am supposed to let him do everything by himself, but since I wanted to blog about it I jumped in a little here and there.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin
1/4 cup powdered sugar for towel
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
6 tbsp. butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
Grease a 10″ x 15″ cooking sheet or jelly roll pan. Add parchment paper and grease and flour the paper. Not wax paper, which the original recipe calls for. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Combine the dry ingredients in a small mixing bowl and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl beat together eggs and sugar, then beat in pumpkin until combined.
Add the dry ingredients and mix well.
It wasn’t easy taking pictures without his teaching noticing through the computer camera lol.

Spread the batter evenly on the prepared pan, and bake for 13-15 minutes until the cake bounces back when touched.
Sprinkle 1/4 cup of powdered sugar on to a kitchen towel. This will prevent the cake from sticking to the towel. My powdered sugar was really clumpy for some reason, next time I will sift the sugar onto the towel.

The next part had me very confused, I must admit. How to get the cake onto the towel without breaking it. I just grabbed onto both edges of the cake while it was on the parchment paper and flipped quickly. Luckily it didn’t break!

Then you start rolling up the cake in the towel. After it is rolled let it cool on a cooling rack for an hour.


Prepare the frosting by beating the cream cheese and butter together with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the vanilla and beat. Then beat in the sifted powdered sugar until combined.
Unroll the cake carefully and spread the frosting evenly over the cake.

Re-roll the cake and wrap with plastic wrap. Our cake did crack as you can see. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. Store in the refrigerator.

Once it is cool, sift some powdered sugar on top and slice.
I was a little impatient and didn’t let it get cold enough before cutting and the frosting smudged a little. It tastes amazing! So good!

Yum, yum!!