I made my first-ever jelly roll yesterday. It went so smoothly that I was surprised. I turned out the baked cake onto a towel dusted with confectioners sugar. I rolled up the cake in the towel and let it cool a bit. I unrolled it with no problem. I spread the filling on the cake and rolled the cake back up again with no problem. The cake didn't break, split or crack.
But after I finished rolling up the cake with the filling inside, I realized that I had rolled the cake from the long end instead of the short end. Instead of a lovely jelly roll, I had what turned out to be a thin cake rolled about once or one-and-a-half times around a big glop of filling.
It tasted okay, but it tasted more like a jelly-filled doughnut than a jelly roll.
I guess I'll just have to try again, and this time remember to roll it from the short end.
Terrel