Chocolate Cake Roll with Praline Filling

October. The Set the Table annual anniversary — nine years. Forty girls across three locations. The program that started with six girls and scrambled eggs in a church kitchen now serves a community. Not a neighborhood. A COMMUNITY. Girls from five schools, two community centers, and one church. The waiting list is sixty. SIXTY girls waiting to get in. I am one woman. I cannot cook for a hundred. But I can train women who train girls who train other girls and the multiplication is the miracle. The miracle is not me. The miracle is the system. The system is: teach someone to cook. Watch them teach someone. Watch that someone teach someone else. Stand in the doorway. The doorway is the most powerful position in a kitchen. The teacher in the doorway. Watching. Trusting. Letting go.

Diamond is twenty now. She's a sophomore at Georgia State, studying education. She still runs the church kitchen Saturday mornings. She is the first Set the Table girl to become a Set the Table leader. The first student to become the teacher. The circle that Destiny started (Destiny, who is now a sous chef at a restaurant in Charlotte, whose career is HAPPENING) — the circle continues through Diamond and Keyana and the next girl and the next. The circle is the program. The program is the circle. Both are the table.

Made an anniversary celebration: twenty girls from the church location cooked a meal for each other. No families this year — just the girls, for each other, because the girls are the family too. They set the table. They sat down. They ate what they made. They were proud. The pride is the recipe. The table is the classroom. The classroom is the kitchen. The kitchen is everything.

Nine years in, the girls didn’t want to cook for families or guests or anyone watching — they wanted to cook for each other, just for each other, and that felt like the whole point arriving all at once. When Diamond asked what the centerpiece dessert should be, someone said something that required real skill, something that looked impossible until you’ve been taught right, something that would make them proud — and this chocolate cake roll with praline filling was exactly that. Rolling a cake without cracking it is the kind of technique that only comes from someone showing you, and watching someone show someone else, and that’s the whole program in a single dessert.

Prep Time: 30 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 1 hr 45 min | Servings: 10

Ingredients

For the cake:
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup powdered sugar, for rolling
For the praline filling:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup pecans, toasted and roughly chopped

Instructions

Preheat and prep pan. Heat oven to 375°F. Grease a 15x10-inch jelly-roll pan, line it with parchment paper, and grease the parchment. Dust lightly with cocoa powder.
Beat the eggs and sugar. In a large bowl, beat eggs on high speed for 3—4 minutes until thick and pale yellow. Gradually beat in the granulated sugar, then mix in the water and vanilla.
Add dry ingredients. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Fold into the egg mixture in two additions until just combined — do not overmix.
Bake. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake 12—15 minutes, until the top springs back when lightly touched and the edges are just pulling away from the pan.
Roll while hot. Immediately dust a clean kitchen towel generously with the 1/4 cup powdered sugar. Turn the hot cake out onto the towel and peel off the parchment. Starting at a short end, roll the cake up tightly inside the towel. Set seam-side down on a wire rack and cool completely, about 1 hour.
Make the praline filling. Beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth and fluffy. Add powdered sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla; beat on medium until fully combined and creamy. Fold in the toasted pecans.
Fill and re-roll. Gently unroll the cooled cake. Spread the praline filling evenly over the surface, leaving a 1/2-inch border at the edges. Re-roll the cake (without the towel) and place seam-side down on a serving platter.
Chill and serve. Wrap loosely in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 30 minutes before slicing. Dust with additional powdered sugar just before serving. Slice with a sharp serrated knife.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Cake Roll with Praline Filling — What the Girls Made for Each Other