“I enjoy cooking, but I love my blog!” this is an “almost” quote from Sara of Belly Rumbles, she was referring to all the wonderful things our blog’s allows us to participate in.

We had just finished a wonderful day cooking with Suzanne Gibbs, daughter to the great Margaret Fulton. I had been content just hearing stories about the earlier days of food styling and being shown personal images of Margaret & Suzanne working together.

Then we were told we would be serving afternoon tea to the idol herself, Margaret Fulton.  This was all made possible by the lovely people at Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese has just released a new product “Cream for Desserts” it has only half the fat of regular double cream but the same thick creamy consistency. Sara from Belly Rumbles, Sarah from A Beach Cottage, Sandra from 120 dollar food challenge and myself were all invited to the home of Suzanne Gibbs, the ambassador from Philly products to attend a dessert Masterclass using this fantastic new product.

Left to right: Sarah, Sandra, Margaret, Me, Suzanne & Sara

On arrival we are told that Suzanne would be teaching us to make a Chocolate Roulade with “Cream for Desserts” and Mixed Berries.  She explains that this is a dish the family will often share for birthdays and other special meals. Suzanne previously cooked this masterpiece at a Cordon Bleu Restaurant in London. We are shown a recipe card that Philly has printed and the dessert looks gorgeous. It is definitely one of those impressive desserts which would enable the cook to get lots of praise from guests. I have had mixed success with roulades, so I am looking forward to standing back and watching Suzanne show us the finer points of this dish.

We had also been pre warned that each of us would be put into a “pressure test” with a mystery ingredient, and asked to create our own dessert using the cream.

This aspect of the day had been playing on my mind... what would the mystery ingredient be?  What would I make? What if I failed cooking for the lady who taught me to cook? Well maybe she didn’t actually teach me to cook, but I grew up with my mum’s copy of the “The Margaret Fulton” Hardcover Cookbook, and with the step by steps photo’s, over the course of my childhood I made almost every sweet dish in there and a lot of the savoury dishes too.

I had taken so much excitement from seeing Margaret on MasterChef last season, that I could scarcely believe we would be meeting the great women herself. In my defense, I don’t think I was the only gushing blogger in the room.

Margaret would be visiting for afternoon tea where she would sample all our creations.

On with the Roulade, this recipe is available on the Philadelphia Site and has been reproduced on my website verbatim. Please visit the delicious dessert pages for more great ideas. I have tried quite a number of the recipes, they are absolutely luscious, and so much lower in fat when using the Philadelphia Cream for Desserts.

 Ingredients

• 3 eggs, separated
• ½ cup (110g) caster sugar
• 2 tablespoons sifted cocoa (Suzanne uses Dutch Cocoa)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 250ml PHILADELPHIA Cream for Desserts, a double cream alternative
• 1 punnet strawberries, blueberries or raspberries (optional, or a mixture)
• Icing sugar, for dusting

Method

SET oven temperature at 180oC non-fan. Line a 30cm x 25cm swiss roll pan with baking paper.

BEAT egg yolks with a whisk or electric beater until thick and creamy. Gradually beat in sugar.

Fold cocoa and vanilla into egg yolk mixture.

BEAT egg whites until soft peaks form.

Gently fold the cocoa mixture into the egg whites.

Pour at once into prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes, until cake has drawn away from sides and springs back when gently touched in the middle.

HAVE ready a tea towel liberally sprinkled with caster sugar. Turn cake out onto towel, carefully peel away paper and while still warm, roll up, including towel, and leave on a wire rack to cool.

WHEN completely cold, very gently unroll and spread with PHILLY Cream for Desserts. Scatter over sliced strawberries, raspberries or blueberries if using. Roll cake up and chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Just before serving dust roulade with icing sugar and cut into thick slices to serve.

Naturally we all sampled this light as a feather dessert. Suzanne has made it all look so easy that I will have to try and make it for the family. The flavour of the chocolate was just magic, and I don’t know where the calories from the cream have gone, but there was no compromise on flavour. The dessert was just as rich and decadent as ever and the lovely sweet fruits finished it perfectly.

I checked the pricing online and found that the PHILLY “Cream for Desserts” retails at $3.97 per 250ml carton and the brand of double cream I usually purchase is $4.88 for 300ml. Given that I prefer my desserts to be lower in fat, I would now choose this product before traditional double cream for health reasons. The taste is the same, the price is very similar, and any reduction in saturated fat is a good reduction.

We were all given a wonderful Philadelphia Cooler bag full of delicious Kraft products to take home, and a "Simply Heaven" Cookbook for further inspiration. Naturally I will be sharing my creamy creations with readers. Suzanne & Margaret generously agreed to autograph my copy of the Simply Heaven Cookbook! I wonder if I am too old to be a groupie?

So prepare to see some more luscious PHILLY "Cream for Dessert" recipes in the days to follow. I will also be sharing my "Pressure Test" experience with a "mystery ingredient". Thankfully it was a very relaxed pressure test. Whew!! I met and shared a kitchen with some lovely bloggers, and two absolute idols, what an awesome day. Don’t forget to take a look at the other bloggers websites.

Gourmet Getaways attended this event courtesy of Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese.