Cherry meringue roulade

This was another one of Mary Berrys cakes for the weekly bake off challenge  some of us have been doing. It was supposed to be raspberry roulade but my local shop had no raspberries and not sure October best month for them anyway. So after a wander around the shop feeling a bit blank I cam upon the idea of using a tin of pie filling. Cherry pie filling. Yet again I have missed out the flaked almonds as specified on page 175 of Mary Berry 100 cakes and bakes books, as son doesn't like them,

This weeks was judged by Yasmin and you can see all the details and the results here and amazingly I won the star baker award this week!!!! So i proudly present

It was a surprisingly short list of ingredients for a really nice cake I felt

preheat oven to gas mark 7
line your swiss roll tin with baking paper
you will need
5 egg whites
275g caster sugar

for the filling
300 ml whipping or double cream
1/2 tin approx of red cherry pie filling

Whisk up your egg whites until they are very stiff, then add the sugar, slowly while still whisking, one teaspoon at a time. keep whisking until all is incorporated and mixture is very very stiff.

then put the egg white mix into your lined tin.

 and smooth down

At this point you could sprinkle on 50g flaked almonds if you liked. 

Place near top of your oven for 8 minutes until pale golden, then turn oven down to gas mark 3 and bake for a further 15 minutes.  At this point it had grown a lot and I was wondering how I was going to roll it. But it deflates after it comes out 

The recipe doesn't say to put icing sugar on the baking paper you have laid out ready to turn the roulade out onto but I found mine stuck slightly in places so lay out a piece of baking paper and dust with icing sugar! When the time is up take out roulade and then upturn it onto the prepared paper. Remove the paper from the top that lined the tin and be amazed at how much it shrinks.

While the roulade cools for about 10 minutes whisk up your double cream until it forms stiff peaks. at this point I took just under half the pie filling mix and ripples that through the cream.  Then spread this onto your roulade and roll it up like a swiss roll. roll baking paper around it and put in the fridge and keep chilled until needed.
before going in fridge and before ends were neatened up it looked like this

See what I mean by how some of the top stuck to paper and came off.  Use icing sugar next time is what I learnt from this.
A little later I trimmed the ends, which tasted great and dusted with icing sugar. Then let the boys at it after a final picture

This was a surprisingly easy and quick bake for something that people seem to think is hard.