Ingredients
For cake
Powdered sugar, 7 ounces
Fine flour, 6 ounces
Eggs, 6
Food coloring:
white Rosolio
white Rosolio mixed with chocolate
Alkermes
For stuffing
Fruit preserve
Candied fruit
Frosting
Sugar frosting or chocolate frosting
Equipment needed: rectangular baking dish smeared with butter and dusted with flour
Directions
Prepare a sponge cake using the ingredients listed.
To bake it place it in a rectangular baking dish smeared with butter and sprayed with flour; the dough should not be more than 1/8 inch thick.
Dry the flour well before using it to make it lighter.
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar for about half an hour; add the beaten egg whites and then pour in the flour through a sieve.
When the cake is still hot cut strips from it, 1 inch wide and as long as the roll to which they are to serve as stuffing. These strips should be of different colors; wet some with white rosolio so that they remain yellow; others with alkermes to become red; the rest can be made black with white rosolio mixed with chocolate.
Cover the strips with a liquid fruit preserve; place them one on top of the other alternating colors, in the middle of the sponge cake of which the surface is also spread with preserve.
Pull the ends of the sponge cake over the strips and form a roll, which when sliced shows a checkerboard of various colors. For family use this recipe can be simplified. Use only half of the ingredients.
Cover the sponge cake with rosolio and fruit preserve; place thin slices of candied fruit on the preserve, and roll the cake up.
In both cases it is well to ornament the upper part with a sugar frosting or a chocolate coating.
Mix some powdered sugar with an egg white so that it is very thick and spread it on the roll uniformly.
For a chocolate frosting take 2 ounces of sugar and 1 ounce of chocolate; mix well, add an egg white and spread it on the cake. If it does not dry naturally, place it near moderate heat.
Notes
This recipe (#353) was taken from "The Italian Cook Book" adapted from the Italian of Pellegrino Artusi by Olga Ragusa. It was published by S.F. Vanni in New York in 1945. For the complete copyright cook book see www.archive.org.... N.B. This cake is very difficult to do. Using strips to give it a checkerboard design was impossible. Food coloring was used to give the cake batter color. Perhaps an experienced home cook can make this cake roll, but an inexperienced one should avoid it. Comments and photo: Mary Melfi. | 
