That’s a picture from the internet. You’ve been there; you’re scrolling along your FB feed and you come across a recipe that looks really good. Good and simple, easy and quick. The other day we were perusing half-heartedly, and a picture of this delightful dessert appeared, Triple Berry Angel Food Cake Roll. So we tried it. And we liked it.

There’s a whole “Nailed It” internet activity that goes like this; people see a beautiful finished product, they think, “That looks great, I bet I can do that!” So they follow the recipe and post a picture of their result. Sometimes it works out, but oftentimes, not so much.

While it is the ironic “Nailed It” that garners all the yuks, it still makes the casual reader leery of attempting a recipe that may just fall out of their skill set. This Angel food dessert, originally posted by The Recipe Rebel is as easy as it is beautiful and delicious, and certainly worth the minor effort. It is especially good this time of year, as we still have all these beautiful fresh fruits in season, and you could even substitute some other fruit instead; sliced Niagara peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines would be amazing.

One of the idiot-proof things about this recipe is, wait for it; you use a store-bought cake mix. Why not? It’s ok to give yourself a break every now and then. So go ahead and have a look at the recipe. We followed it exactly and it turned out just as advertised- beautifully. Here a few comments based on our experience:

• The jelly-roll pan or rimmed baking sheet does indeed hold the entire amount of cake mix, and yes, it does puff up quite a bit during baking. But it did not flop out of the pan, and it did collapse a little while it cooled to warm, making it easy to roll up.
• Trim off the uneven/wonky sides and ends with a serrated knife to make the cake uniformly flat and even, this will make it easier to work with and results in a gorgeous presentation
• Run the icing sugar through a strainer when dusting the tea towel, it will give you a lump-free, uniform application.

• Once the rolled-up cake cooled, we decided we only wanted a small cake, so we cut the roll in half. (Use a serrated bread knife) You may want to do this too, depending on the number of guests; the icing and the fruit are quite wet, and the cake will become sort of soggy by the next day. To avoid this you can wrap and store the unused cake and the rest of the ingredients and assemble the second half of the cake the next day.

cut the cake in half and make this the next day

Or….what about a sort of trifle for the next day? Cut up the cake into pieces, sprinkling them with a little sweet sherry if you like, and layer it in a trifle bowl or in individual serving dishes, alternating with the other ingredients. If you want to go the extra mile you can whip up a quick custard with good old reliable Birds custard powder. Or just go as is. Whatever you decide, this cake is a winner and should not intimidate you, even if you’ve never made a jelly roll before. And if you mix things up a bit and give it your own twist, you can truly say you’ve nailed it!

Nailed It!