Copycat Chocolate Swiss Rolls
I think…or at least hope every one of you have at least tried a Little Debbie Swiss Roll at one point in your life. They are so nostalgic. Even though the ganache on the outside of a Little Debbie is almost waxy…? They are still somehow so delicious and nostalgic tasting.
Luckily for all of you, this recipe does not have a waxy ganache. It’s luscious, smooth, and rich. In this recipe I give you everything you love about these chocolate Swiss Rolls but with ingredients you can trust. Because everyone deserves to indulge on their favorite sweets, but having them homemade makes them even better. With this recipe you can have them whenever you’d like!
Making The Chocolate Swiss Roll Batter
This Chocolate Swiss Roll recipe is similar to my Designed Swiss Roll recipe where we make and prepare the base of the batter then whip and fold in stiff peaked egg whites. This will always create the fluffiest of cakes that are moist and soft enough to allow us to roll them up without tearing then unravel them once cooled to fill and roll back up.
This recipe makes enough for two regular large sized Swiss Rolls. If you’d prefer to not make the the small individual Swiss Rolls like I do, simply roll and assemble the Swiss Rolls just as you would with the small ones. Once the cake is out of the oven, remove it from the pan and immediately roll up in parchment paper or a damp rag. Keep scrolling to see the different size variations you can assemble this cake as.
Assembling Copycat Swiss Rolls
This is getting to the fun part, watching all of your hard work come to life :) As you can see in the pictures, the swiss roll cut in have has a beautiful swirl. I experimented with different sized swiss rolls for this recipe and broke down the three different rolling techniques in three graphics below. The dotted lines represent the different cuts made into the cake to achieve different sizes! I hope these help!
The first Swiss Roll size variation is the standard sized large roll, similar to a yule log. This recipe would make enough for two of these. You can cut the recipe in half if you only want one Roll. This size is easiest to assemble.
This Swiss Roll size variation will give you that lovely swirl effect when sliced in half similar to the first variation but they will be smaller in size. This size will still be larger than the copycat little debbie swiss rolls.
This is the size variation you see in the video. These slices will best result in the closest copycat version to the little debbie Swiss Rolls. The smaller you cut the cake the more Swiss Rolls you’ll end up with.
Choosing a Swiss Roll Size
Regardless of whatever size you decide to go with please note that they all taste just like a copycat little debbie swiss roll cake that we all love, remember, and enjoy! :) If you are serving a crowd, the more elegant approach would be to create the first size variation of creating a large Swiss Roll. The second option will still have the swirl effect when you slice them open. The last option, as discussed above, will best represent the size and shape of the little debbie swiss rolls.
Copycat Chocolate Swiss Rolls
Join my creative baking community! In depth courses, direct access to me, and more 🤎 Click here to join!
32 mini swiss rolls
servings30
minutes8
minutesKeep the screen of your device on.
Ingredients
8 eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided
2 Tbsp. very strong coffee
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
8 Tbsp. cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
- Whipped Cream Filling
2 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tsp. vanilla extract
- Chocolate Ganache Coating
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate baking bar, chopped
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease and line 2 standard 9″ x 13″ cookie sheets with parchment paper. This recipe makes two cookie sheets full of batter. To make one standard-size Swiss roll, cut the recipe in half.
- Separate 8 egg yolks from the egg whites. Place the egg whites in a large bowl and the yolks into a medium-sized bowl. Set the egg yolks aside.
- Whip up the egg whites using an electric mixer. As the egg whites become foamy, gradually add in 3/4 cups of granulated sugar to the egg whites. Whisk until the mixture reaches stiff peaks. Set aside.
- Add in the remaining 3/4 cups of granulated sugar to the egg yolks as well as the vanilla. Whisk until smooth. Set aside.
- In a separate, large bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Combine these dry ingredients together evenly.
- Add the strong coffee and melted butter to the dry ingredients. Combine with a silicone spatula until just combined. The mixture will be very thick at first.
- Add the egg yolk mixture to the dry ingredients bowl and combine with a silicone spatula then switch to a whisk. Whisk until the mixture is nice and smooth.
- Gently fold in the stiff egg whites from earlier into the chocolate mixture. Be sure to fold the egg whites in just until the batter is nice and evenly incorporated. We want this cake to stay nice and fluffy so that means we don’t want to deflate the egg whites during this process.
- Transfer the batter to the two prepared cookie sheets. Again, this recipe makes a lot of the mini copycat little debbie swiss rolls. You can create these swiss rolls in various sizes for different results.
- Bake one cookie sheet at a time for 8-10 minutes.
- While the cake bakes, prepare a sheet of parchment paper with cocoa powder dusted on top to prevent the cake from sticking.
- Right when the cake comes out of the oven, slice it into 4 equal pieces. Slice the dusted parchment paper underneath the cake into four pieces as well then roll the 4 cakes into mini swiss rolls. Set aside to cool completely. Repeat these steps for all of the cake.
- Making the Whipped Cream Filling
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fit with the whisk attachment, and beat the heavy cream on medium speed while gradually adding in the sugar. Whip up this mixture until the whipped cream is fluffy and has thickened to a cool whip consistency. Add in the vanilla. Allow this to chill until it’s time to assemble.
- Making the Chocolate Ganache Coating
- Place the chopped chocolate into a medium-sized bowl.
- In a microwave-safe bowl, heat the heavy cream in 30-second intervals until it begins to bubble. This can take a couple of minutes just be sure to keep an eye on the microwave so it doesn’y bubble over.
- Pour the hot heavy cream over the chopped chocolate. Allow to sit for about 45 seconds.
- Whisk the mixture until it is nice and smooth. Set aside until time to assemble.
- Once the cakes have finally cooled, unravel them one at a time. This step is dependent upon on how you’d like your swiss rolls to look. You can roll the swiss roll as is, 1/4 size OR you can cut each quarter in 4 equal pieces again so that you will have 16 swiss rolls per cookie sheet. Watch the video for reference. The larger the swiss roll the better the swirl in the center. The smallest size swiss rolls best resemble the little debbie swiss rolls!
- Spread an even layer of whipped cream on top of each piece of cake then roll up the way you would any other swiss roll. Scrape any excess whipped cream off of the roll. Place the roll face down onto a cookie sheet so they stay tightly rolled. Repeat the filling and rolling steps for each swiss roll.
- Place the swiss rolls in the freezer for at least 2 hours or overnight to chill before dipping.
- If you are coating the swiss rolls the following day, store the ganache in the fridge overnight.
- When it comes time to coat each swiss roll, feel free to reheat the ganache for 15-20 seconds to make it nice and smooth (the ganache thickens as it cools). We want a thin ganache to thinly coat each swiss roll.
- One at a time, dunk and coat each swiss roll in ganache, use a fork to help coat each one, and allow the excess chocolate to drip back into the bowl. Place each dipped swiss roll on a cookie sheet fit with parchment paper. Once they’re all dipped, place them in the fridge to set for at least 30 minutes. Store in the fridge until it’s time to serve and enjoy!
Did you make this recipe?
I love seeing what you bake on socials! Just tag @thesqueakymixer
I was never able to get my eggs whites to stiffen, but the cakes turned out fine. So it seems you can skip this step. I also skipped cutting them fresh out of the oven and I just cut them after cooling into 16 rolls. Also make the ganache AFTER the cakes have come out of the freezer so you don’t have to reheat it. The instructions about the coffee was a little confusing so I made 6 oz of strong coffee. Hopefully that’s what the recipe meant.
Edit: I rolled the cake up into one long cake roll, let it cool, unrolled it, and then cut it.
Delicious. I halved the recipe, worked great. The sheet pan size is correct per my experience. The process is straight forward, the rolling and dipping can be time consuming and I wonder if it might be quicker and easier, if not as concerned in recreating the swiss roll, to prepare it as bars instead of rolls. Quite delicious. It cannot however, be pinned to Pinterest, which I would really like.
This came out amazing!!! We won 2nd place on our 1st try!!!
AMAZING!! :) This just made my day!!
Ugh, there’s no way this amount of batter fits into a 9″x13″ cookie sheet. I made 2 recipes simultaneously, one step at a time, one mixer per batch. Oven temp at 350, each pan went in two different ovens, in 9″x 13″ pans. As I distributed batter into each pan, I thought maybe this wasn’t a good idea, as the pans were full. I was going to switch and put the batter from each pan into standard 13″ x 18″ one-half-sized sheet pans and I thought, no, I will follow the instructions. All my batter- for both sheets- overflowed. Super bummed, but I am going to make them all over again in a 1/2 sheet pan. I love your recipes and everything you develop and make. But this was just the wrong pan size :(
My mistake, I misread a critical part of the recipe! On my second try, I realized it was it what it was that I had misread. Works like a charm!
Carla you had me so scared for a second! 😂 I’m so glad it worked out the second time. If there’s anything I can do to make the recipe more clear please let me know ❤️ Enjoy!!
Wait, I had the same issue and I re-read the recipe a million times. I even measured my cookie sheets as I poured the batter in, because I thought, “there’s no way this is the right size.”
So was it supposed to be FOUR 9×13 cookie sheets, or two half-sheets? I did two 9×13 sheets (as I think it says in step 1??) but mine came out very thick, and this was even with me doing a poor job separating my eggs so they never got to stiff peaks (aka, my batter was a bit flat to begin with).
I feel like it can’t possibly be a 9×13″ sheet. In the video the sheet of cake is cut into 4 and then each of those is also cut into 4. That would mean each of the pieces is no larger than 2.25″x3.25″, which is way smaller than the pieces in the video. Besides, a “standard” cookie sheet is a half-sheet pan (13″x18″), which would make a lot more sense based on sizing (each piece would be 3.25″x4.5″). I’d love some clarification from the author on this one, or at least a photo showing the whole pan at once with something for scale.
What size is the cookie sheet?
Two standard 9″ x 13″ cookie sheets, sorry for the confusion and thank you for this comment, I’ll be sure to add this to the recipe right away! :)