Spanish cuisine · Desserts & Sweets

Brazo de Gitano

Airy sponge roll, rolled up warm and filled with cold vanilla cream, finished with a thick dusting of powdered sugar.

Ingredients · for 8 servings

• 4 eggs
• 120 g sugar
• 120 g flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 500 ml whole milk
• 3 egg yolks
• 100 g sugar for the cream
• 40 g cornstarch
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 organic lemon (zest)
• 3 tbsp powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions

1. For the cream, bring the milk to a boil with the scraped-out vanilla bean seeds and lemon zest; whisk the egg yolks with 100 g sugar and the cornstarch, return everything to the pot and cook for 2 min., stirring, until the cream thickens firmly; chill covered.
2. Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Beat the eggs with 120 g sugar and salt for 8 min. until very pale and thick, until the mixture falls from the whisk in a broad ribbon.
4. Sift the flour over the top and fold in gently with a spatula, spread the mixture 1 cm high on the sheet and bake for 10–12 min. until the sponge is evenly light golden and springs back when pressed.
5. Immediately turn the hot sponge out onto a sugar-dusted cloth, peel off the paper and loosely roll up the sponge with the cloth from the long side; let cool like this for 20 min.
6. Carefully unroll it, spread the cold cream evenly to within 2 cm of the edge, roll up firmly again, chill for 1 hr. and dust thickly with powdered sugar before slicing.