No artificial coloring.

Would you beleive me if I tell you that there is no artificial coloring added in this swiss roll?

No kidding.... this sweet pink swiss roll is made from hibiscus or roselle. I also couldn't beleive that it could produce a nice shade of pink in the final cake. My first inteniton for growing this hibiscus was to add the color to my garden. The flower is beatutiful, isn't it? Now I have too many of them in the garden....gotta do something with it.

The part that I used are the red calyces of the plant. I harvested them fresh and let them dry. Dried calyces can be grinded into powder or we can keep them like that to make herb tea. I soaked them in the water before adding them to the cake batter. The deep dark purple red tea got mixed with egg, flour and other ingredients and finally turned into pink cake. Since it was the first time using roselle in my cake, I had no idea about the right quanity to be used. " The more is the better", I thought!

I also processed the calyces into small pieces and added in to the batter. I'm glad I did it......those little pieces is nice to chew. However, it's quite a challenge to get a nice slice of the cake because of those chewy bits.

Don't let my messy looking cake stop you from trying hibiscus to any of your desserts. If you love the natural tart flavour that comes free with the beautiful shade of pink, you should consider playing around with hibiscus. I already added hibiscus macarons in my wish list. I think it would produce an interesting color on the macarons.

Hibiscus swiss roll with creamcheese and walnut.....yummy.