This Triple Berry Angel Food Cake Roll is an easy red, white and blue dessert (or just red and white!) for the 4th of July or Canada Day, or any day! Perfect with fresh summer strawberries, raspberries and blueberries 🙂 Includes step by step recipe video.
So I had these grand plans to make you a chocolate cake roll.
I had made cake rolls. They were easy.
I figured I’d start with my favorite chocolate cake roll, and roll it up like you do a cake roll, and it would just work. (<– this attitude gets me in trouble more than you might think)
So I made my chocolate cake. And I rolled it up. When I unrolled it, it was in about 8 different pieces — it had cracked like crazy! I made it again. I rolled it up again. Once again — about 8 different pieces of cake that would definitely not be rolling back up. The cake is so moist and delicious, I have no idea why it wouldn’t unroll in one piece. Too much moisture maybe?
Since I was totally inspired by this Strawberry Shortcake Roll from Dorothy of Crazy for Crust — she is the queen of cake rolls, friends — I thought maybe I’d do something vanilla. I had made cake rolls with angel food cake before and they had turned out so well, so maybe I’ll go that route.
And because there is nothing better than fresh berries with angel food cake and whipped cream, and it’s May, and the whole red, white and blue orrrrr red and white thing (maybe you know I’m a proud Canadian, but I also have plenty of proud American friends here!)…. this is what we got.
The whole cream cheese whipped cream thing is a totally unintentional similarity between Dorothy’s and my own (surely you’ve heard of my love affair with cream cheese or you saw this awesome No Bake Lemon Cheesecake, Best Vanilla Cheesecake or this Brownie Batter Cheesecake?!?), and I can only hope she’ll still love me in the end 😉
Tips and Tricks for Making this Triple Berry Angel Food Cake Roll:
- You don’t need any special equipment for making this cake roll, but you will need a good rimmed baking sheet, a clean kitchen towel and some parchment paper.
- If you’re not as lame as me and you actually make angel food cake from scratch (and you have a dozen or so eggs to spare, which we never seem to!), feel free to go that route — it should work just as well! I don’t use cake mix often, but angel food cake is one of those things I usually cheat on. Someday I will go for the real deal!
- You can obviously mix up the filling and the fruit as you desire here — try pudding for a filling, or different sauces or frostings, try strawberries and kiwi or add blackberries, or fresh cherries…. the options are endless! Go nuts 😉
- This cake roll is best eaten the day it’s made, because the berries won’t last long and it’s difficult to cover without smearing. I made this the day we were heading to a potluck, and I left a happy woman with an empty plate and a ton of rave reviews!
Triple Berry Angel Food Cake Roll (a Red, White and Blue dessert) + VIDEO
written by Ashley Fehr
Ingredients
- 1 Angel Food Cake mix plus ingredients to prepare
- 1/4 cup + ¾ cup powdered sugar divided
- 8 oz light cream cheese room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream 35%
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries diced
- 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
- 1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line the bottom of a 10x15x1″ rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (make sure that it lays flat on the bottom). Do not grease the pan.
- Prepare cake mix according to package directions. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 20 minutes, until the top is golden and the edges start to crack. *NOTE: It will rise up in the pan significantly, even over the top. But even though it gets high it should not flow over — if you’re concerned, slip an extra baking sheet or a piece of foil underneath just in case.
- Loosen cake from the edges of the pan while it’s still warm — it’s going to be a little sticky, like angel food cake is, but it will come away easily.
- Spread out a clean kitchen towel and sprinkle evenly with ¼ cup powdered sugar. Flip warm cake out onto the towel, peel off the parchment paper and immediately roll up starting at the short end, WITH the towel inside. Let cool completely (at room temperature for 1-2 hours or pop it in the fridge or freeze momentarily if you’re impatient like me! You don’t want it hot inside when you add your filling.)
- In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth. Add ¾ cup powdered sugar, vanilla and cream and beat on low until combined, then on high for 3-4 minutes until fluffy and stiff peaks form.
- Unroll cooled cake (you can just leave it laying on the towel) and spread with half of the filling and top with half of the berries. Carefully roll back up (this time without the towel!) and place on a serving plate. Spread top and sides with remaining filling and top with remaining berries. Serve immediately (leftovers are best eaten within 24 hours).
Nutrition Information
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Kayley says
Can you make the roll with berries inside leave the top off till serving to allow this to last longer?
Ashley Fehr says
It’s the berries that will spoil first, as they will get soft (mostly the strawberries). You could probably skip the strawberries and it will last a little longer, but I likely wouldn’t store it more than 24 hours.
Carlotta says
Could you use a pound cake in place of angel food cake?
jes058 says
i’m not sure you could roll up a pound cake; they’re pretty dense.
Ashley Fehr says
No definitely not. The cake is crucial!
Lisa Murray says
can you make this in a 16x12x1 inch pan?
Ashley Fehr says
You can, you will just have a thinner cake layer and will need to reduce the baking time.
Barbara says
I made this today and it was absolutely delicious! Thanks for the great recipe.
Ashley Fehr says
Thanks Barbara! I’m glad you liked it!
Cathy says
Could you bake and roll cake freeze for one week, thaw then fill and reroll?
Ashley Fehr says
Yes, definitely!
Melanie Barton says
Might want to add some lemon curd to the whipped filling. Just sayin’.
You could also use a little raspberry liquor.
I do cream cheese/whipping cream frostings and fillings all the time. And I’ve never measured (which often causes small issues) — and I use very little sugar in those. Often I just use ordinary white sugar instead of confectioners.
Ashley Fehr says
Lemon curd would be fabulous! I love lemon and berries 🙂 You can definitely use regular granulated sugar but it can be a little gritty.
Melissa Storms says
This looks amazing and I think I will be able to use my own strawberries and some of the delicious wild raspberries we pick, we pick lots of wild blueberries too but the timing would be off to have all 3 fresh together. I am always looking for recipes to use our strawberries and the wild berries…this looks like a winner to me. You could add a little baking cocoa to the cream cheese mixture if you are looking for chocolate taste. This looks perfect to me as is though, so glad it came across my FB feed.
Ashley Fehr says
Yes, you could definitely add some cocoa for a chocolate version! You could even add some to the angel food cake 🙂 Let me know how you like it!
Claire Peucker says
I was wondering if you know of a good angel cake recipe I could use for this? Unfortunately angel food cake mix isn’t sold here in Australia, apart from a couple of American stores (which are sold out at the moment). I used a recipe to make it not long ago but the cake broke up when I unrolled it. I’m not sure if I used the wrong recipe or if I did something wrong.
Ashley Fehr says
Angel food cake is one thing I have never made from scratch, sorry! I’m sure there are lots of great recipes out there!
Debra Chamberlain says
https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/angel-food-cake-homemade-12591
This is my go to Angel Food Cake Recipe – it is amazing! Forego the premix, you won’t regret it 🙂
Debra Chamberlain says
Making this for the holiday today – I have heard so many raves about this recipe fro friends and family that have made it on past July 4th holidays. Thanks for the recipe, I cant wait to eat this deliciousness!!
Ashley Fehr says
I hope you enjoy it!
Amanda says
What if I don’t have parchment paper? Should I use aluminum foil or nothing?
Ashley Fehr says
You can use nothing, you’ll just have to pull it from the pan and will have a little more clean up. I’d use a little non stick spray! Usually when making angel food cake you would use a pan with no parchment or non stick.
Ruth says
A terrific recipe. Works exactly as described and certainly easy with the angel food cake mix. A big hit with the family.
Ashley Fehr says
Thanks Ruth! So glad you enjoyed it!
Debbie says
I will be making this for friends coming for lunch. Can I bake the cake day before and leave it rolled and refrigerated? And what about the filling- can that be made ahead? Thank you it looks delicious
Ashley Fehr says
You can keep it refrigerated for up to 1 day in advance completely filled. You can keep the cake a lot longer, even in the freezer!
Martha says
Looks gorgeous. I’d love to make it for our upcoming patriotic holidays. However, I notice almost all your recipes include the nutrition facts for saturated fat. This one does not. Could you please provide? I’m in Weight Watchers and this is a key nutrition item used to help manage!
Ashley Fehr says
Hi Martha, sorry about that! I do not have that information but My Fitness Pal has a great recipe calorie calculator that can help!
Kathy Ziegenmier says
I’m wondering if you could use Cool Whip instead of the heavy cream as I’m on WW too? Possibly add some lemon curd to that?
Ashley Fehr says
You can definitely use Cool Whip instead if you prefer!
Sharon Storey says
Fantastic and very easy. Thank you for the video – it really helped! Everyone loved it and its a keeper!!
Liz Farber says
I love this cake! I just made it for the 4th time this summer. The last two times I made it my cream cheese mixture has been too runny. What am I doing wrong? Could I have left cream cheese out too long or could I be beating it too long?
Ashley Fehr says
Hi Liz! That is so strange — have you used the same type of cream? The higher the fat content the easier it will whip, and you want everything — the cream, the beaters, the bowl to be on the cool side. I haven’t ever had it turn out runny but I definitely don’t think you whipped it too long — it can really take a while to get there!
Liz Farber says
Just made it again and it turned out! I think i was letting cream cheese get too
warm. Thank you!
Ashley Fehr says
I’m so glad to hear that!
SLW says
This looks yummy and certainly am going to try it!!! Did you know if you want a Chocolate cake roll, just add cocoa to your Angel food mix and there ya go. I just play around with it to get the taste of chocolate that I want. Done it lots of times. A cake is too moist to roll, needs to be a sponge type cake.
Ashley Fehr says
Yes, definitely you can add cocoa! I hope you like it!
Soitza Devlin says
This recipe is a keeper?
Thank you very much
Ashley Fehr says
So glad to hear that!
Lori says
One more thing ~ After reading that some had experienced burning of the under side of the cake, I cooked mine on the top rack in the oven and covered the bottom rack with aluminum foil to catch any possible over flow and also mitigated the direct heat. Cake turned out perfectly 🙂
Ashley Fehr says
Thanks for the tips! So glad you enjoyed it!
Lori says
This was absolutely delicious and relatively simple to make I thought. I found 1/2 cup icing sugar to be plenty in the cream mixture. I made the cake the night before and left it rolled up over night. Did everything else just before transporting it to my in-laws for dinner ~ worked great. As angle cake I thought it might be difficult to slice but not so ~ sliced wonderfully. Such a fresh & tasty dessert!!! Definitely a keeper!
Patti Blair says
I made this for a family gathering and it was a huge hit. However the bottom of the cake burned very badly and I had to slice off the burnt layer with a sharp knife which was frustrating and time consuming. The good news is that the rest of the cake did not taste burned and I was able to salvage it. The cake started to burn almost immediately when I put it in the oven and I turned the oven temperature down to 325 and just had to leave it till the cake cooked enough. I thought my cookie sheet pans were a reasonable quality so not sure what went wrong here.
Also I made the cakes part a day ahead and then left the rolled up cake in the fridge overnight and filled it the next day which worked really well.
Ashley Fehr says
Hi Patti! I’m so sorry that happened! I honestly am not sure what could have gone wrong — no cake should start burning as soon as it’s placed in the oven and I’ve never had that issue with this one before. Was it too close to the bottom of the oven where the element is?
Patti Blair says
Thanks Ashley. I had the cake on the middle rack so I don’t know what went wrong either. My oven cooks at a reliable temperature. Perhaps I’ll try again as the recipe is worth repeating and obviously no one else has had this issue.
Ashley Fehr says
I hope it works better for you the second time!
Bunny says
If you baked this on the bottom of the oven, that is the hottest part of the oven, mainly for pies. Also, your oven may be baking at a higher temp. than the dial on your stove indicates. I’d suggest purchasing an oven thermometer to check this. I have to set my oven 25 degrees higher than I want to get the correct temp. Some oven maunfacturers explain in their manuals how to adjust their dials to reflect the correct temp.
Deb says
Can you make this like a punch bowl cake recipe? I have to transport and would be easier to make in glass bowl and layer cake, cream cheese and fruit
The Recipe Rebel says
Hi Deb! I’ve only tested this recipe as written, but you possibly could do that. If you decide to experiment, let me know how it goes!
Lisa says
Do you use a mixer or a whisk to mix the batter?
Trying to figure out how it goes over only on one side of the pan.
Thanks!!
Ashley Fehr says
I just use a whisk — it comes together very easily and really you shouldn’t need a mixer.
Judy Manning says
I make a cake roll the same way except I cover one end with raspberry ice cream and the other end with vanilla ice cream. I freeze it and slice it and drizzle chocolate syrup over the slices. It’s delicious. I will try your recipe too, it looks wonderful. Thanks
Ashley Fehr says
Oh yum! That sounds delicious!
Libby says
Can frozen fruit be used?
Ashley Fehr says
No I wouldn’t recommend it for this recipe