Make this Brazo de Reina today. It’s a treasured dessert or snack in Chile. This recipe is the traditional melt-in-your-mouth cake with Dulce de Leche filling. You are going to love it!
This recipe is long overdue, but I tried different jelly roll recipes, and they didn’t do it for me. Not soft enough. But when I read this recipe in the excellent blog Kanela y Limón, I thought this was it! And I was right—the difference: no baking powder.
Brazo de Reina is a confection that, similar to Empanadas, has its version in almost every country in Latin America. It can be called Pionono. And the filling will change.
What is the traditional filling of the Brazo de Reina?
The cake is a vanilla flavor in Chile, and the filling is Dulce de Leche. You can be a little more creative with the decoration, just dusting powdered sugar, a mix of dried shredded coconut and powdered sugar, or a mix of chopped walnuts and powdered sugar.
Why is it called Brazo de Reina?
We have no idea. The literal translation is “Queen’s arm.” In Chile, nuns produced most of the old bakery items in convents. Also, Chile was a colony of Spain, so maybe they thought it was an appropriate name for a delicate cake.
What Dulce de Leche do you recommend?
This is an important question; the most traditional will be a canned Dulce de Leche, La Lechera brand (made in Chile) Amazon affiliated link. Easy to find in Latino markets in the USA. I don’t recommend using Argentinian Dulce de Leche; they are very heavy on vanilla flavor and distracting for Chilean purposes.
Where and when do Chileans eat Brazo de Reina?
In Chile, it’s common to see and buy a slice of Brazo de Reina in bakeries and eat it on the go as a snack. As a homemade pastry, it’s usually something for a special occasion like Sunday Once (tea time) or even for a birthday party in place of a more traditional cake.
I found this brazo de reina easy to make, roll, and fill—100% recommended. You can double the recipe to make two. For this occasion, I filled one with lemon curd and the other with dulce de leche and coconut.
Maybe you also like this recipe: Dulce de Leche Mousse.
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Brazo de Reina Chilean Dulce de Leche Roll
A perfect adittion to a dessert table. Spongy and sweet.
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 10
Ingredients
- 50 grams of milk (by weight)
- 50 grams of canola oil (by weight)
- 4 eggs
- 70 grams of sugar, 20 and 50 separately
- 80 grams of all-purpose flour
- pinch of salt
- 1 can of dulce de leche, I used La Lechera, easy to find on Latino markets
- coconut and icing sugar to decorate
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F or 160C.
- Cover the baking sheet with parchment paper. You can use a standard jelly roll pan or a half-sheet pan (18 x 13 inches).
- Separate the eggs. In one large bowl, mix the whites and a pinch of salt. In another large bowl, mix the yolks, 20 grams of sugar, milk, oil, and flour with a balloon whisk until it looks like a batter.
- Beat egg whites until white, add sugar, and beat to a soft peak meringue (see photo).
- Mix both carefully.
- Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. Spread in an even layer of around 1/2 inch thick.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes until golden.
- Remove from the oven and turn onto another sheet of parchment paper. Peel off the paper on top and roll using the new paper. Allow cooling.
- When cool, unroll and spread the dulce de leche, covering the entire cake. If it is thick and hard to spread, heat on medium in the microwave (out of the can) for 1 minute.
- Rollback and sprinkle with powdered sugar and coconut. Slice and serve.
Notes
Recipe from the blog Kanela y Limón
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: Sweets
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Chilean
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 331
- Sugar: 27.9 g
- Sodium: 318.6 mg
- Fat: 17.3 g
- Saturated Fat: 9.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 38.1 g
- Fiber: 2 g
- Protein: 7 g
Hi there!
I followed the recipe exact, but my cake was very sticky and got stuck on the parchment paper and ripped. Any ideas as to how to prevent this happening again?
Thanks!
This happened to me once with a parchment paper with two sides. I used the wrong one.
You can use a knife to slowly lift the cake.
I’m sorry.
Hi, what size sheet pan or how thick should be cake be?
A standard jelly roll pan 10 x 15 inches is ideal. A half sheet pan works too.
This is sooooo good! I love your blog, thanks for sharing.
Awesome, thanks for commenting.
There has to be a conversion from grams to another measurement. I will look it up and get back to you.
I don’t recommend it for this recipe, it must be precise.
Hello!
Do you know what the grams of flour, sugar,milk, and oil convert to in cups? I unfortunately do not have a food scale, so I’m having a difficult time trying to figure out what the conversions are 🙁
This recipe can’t be converted I’m sorry, it needs to be precise.
I also don’t have a scale and converted it to the best of my ability and it turned out just like my Chilean friend’s cake. She caters, so she doesn’t share her recipes. I double it to make 2 cakes and use 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup oil, 8 eggs, 1/3 cup sugar for egg whites and 1/2 cup sugar for egg yolks mixture, 2/3 cups of flour, a pinch of salt, and 2 cans of dolce de leche (I make my own, I put two cans of sweetened condensed milk in two Mason jars, put them in a crock pot, fill the crock pot with enough water to cover to a little above the milk and cook it on low for 10 hours. If you put a fresh seal on the Mason jar and a lid lid it will seal and, if sealed, you can keep it in the fridge for up to 6 months safely.) Also, today, by a convenient accident, I found out that you can skip the flour if you need a gluten free recipe for someone, my niece has severe celiacs disease. I realized after I made it I forgot the flour. The cake just turns out a little thinner with a little more of a crepe type texture. My husband actually likes it better that way. Happy baking.
Thanks for sharing all this. For celiac, I replace the flour with potato starch or cornstarch. Welcome to the blog.