Our Lady of the Pillar Cake

Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar, a beautiful, ancient apparition where Our Lady did not decend from heaven but bilocated to St James in Spain before her own death. Kathyrn from UK Bookworm has a lovely blog posting with more details of this incredible story.

Here is the wooden statue of Our Lady and the Child Jesus sitting up the jasper pillar (now covered in precious metal) that Our Lady gave to St James in Spain.

Here is the recipe for our cake:

SWISS ROLL

Melted butter, to grease
4 eggs, separated
125g (4.4 oz) white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g (1/2 cup) plain flour, sifted
Icing sugar, to dust
480g (1 1/2 cups) Hero Raspberry Swiss Preserve, warmed, strained

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. (356 F) (moderate oven) Brush a 24 x 30cm (base measurement) Swiss roll pan with melted butter and line with baking paper.

Use an electric beater to beat egg yolks, sugar and vanilla in a bowl until a ribbon trail forms when the beater is lifted.

Use clean beaters to beat egg whites in a clean, dry bowl until soft peaks form. Fold into yolk mixture. Sift over flour and use a metal spoon to gently fold until combined.

Pour into prepared pan. Bake in oven for 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from oven. Cover with baking paper, then a damp tea towel. Set aside for 30 minutes to cool.

Dust a piece of baking paper with icing sugar. Remove tea towel and paper from sponge and turn onto icing sugar. Spread with preserve. Starting with the short edge and using the baking paper as a guide, firmly roll up sponge. Wrap in baking paper and place, seam-side down, on a baking tray. Set aside for 30 minutes to set. Dust with icing sugar.

I made up some icing using icing sugar and milk, added a few drops of yellow colouring and piped the scrolling pattern onto the cake.

You can keep this easy if you like and buy a swiss roll, if time is pressing!

Here is our Our Lady of the Pillar craft, if you would like to see how we made this, click here.

Happy Feast Day!