Chocolate cake roll Christmas

I was pretty excited for Christmas Eve for one specific reason --- I had tried some new recipes and I was really excited to see if they had worked.

Thankfully, the cinnamon rolls that morning were great. Now, I had one left to try. I was terrified to see if my cake roll really had worked out.

I used a serrated knife to cut it just like I had seen done in all those videos I watched to see how to make it beautiful, and the first piece flipped away. The filling and the chocolate cake made that perfect spiral, just like I wanted.

Yay!

Plus, I received the BEST compliment a cook can ever get. I know she's biased, but she's also not known to give compliments she doesn't mean, so when my mom said, "This is the best dessert I've ever had," I believed her. And it made my day.

So, here is the Kraft recipe I used. It is tucked away in my recipe book for all future Christmases. I think I started a new tradition.

Chocolate Cake Roll

6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

6 Tbsp. butter

4 eggs

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

2/3 cup water

4 ounces cream cheese

3/4 cup powdered sugar

3 cups whipped topping

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Line 15x10x1-inch pan with parchment paper.

Microwave 3 ounces of chocolate and butter until melted. Add sugar and mix well. Beat in eggs. Add 1/4 cup flour and baking soda and beat until just blended. Add remaining flour alternately with water, beating well after each addition. Spread into prepared pan.

Bake 15 min. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of powdered sugar (which was supposed to help it not stick to the towel you roll it in, but it still stuck for me). Flip onto a towel and roll up; let rest for 10 minutes, until just warm.

Make filling by beating together cream cheese, rest of the powdered sugar and 1.5 cups of whipped topping.

Unroll the cake and fill with cream cheese filling. Roll up.

Melt together the rest of the whipped topping and chocolate. Frost top of cake roll with this mixture. Can add walnuts to the top as well.