I’ve always wanted to make this Christmas cake but only got a chance to try it this year. Yay for me. My first try was good but I did not have anything to decorate it so I just used large marshmallows which I cut and shaped as best I could to make them look like mushrooms. It’s bad. *cringe* hahaha.
My second try is better although it almost turned into a big failure. I tried a different recipe for the cake.. but the cake when I unrolled it after it has completely cooled, cracked. Add to that, my ganache is melting from the warmth coming from my oven (which was very busy roasting the chicken and pork) and it made frosting the cake a bit of a challenge.
To make the story short, I was able to save it and it turned out pretty good, it looks really good and most importantly, yummy 🙂 Okay, I worked hard on this cake so just let me praise my own work. 😛
I’ll do better next year with my Yule Log Cake decoration. Like, I’m already thinking of how it will look like. Haha!
See the photos on top and the last one below–my mushrooms look better already on my second cake. I used marzipan 🙂
Here’s my Buche de Noel–Recipe is adapted from here. Pardon my photos, they are incomplete and not very good. I know but I just want to post this now or this will be an addition to my already long list of pending posts.
Happy New Year!
Buche de Noel (Yule Log Cake)
Equipment
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE:
- ½ cup All Purpose Flour
- ¼ cup Unsweetened Cocoa
- ½ teaspoon Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- ¾ cup Sugar
- 4 pcs Eggs large size / room temperature
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- ¼ cup Butter melted and cooled
FOR THE FILLING:
- ½ cup Whipping Cream heavy / chilled
- ¼ cup Powdered Sugar
- ¼ cup Chocolate Ganache or use chocolate hazelnut spread
- 3 ounces Cream Cheese softened
FOR THE FROSTING:
- 1 cup Whipping Cream
- 10 ounces Bittersweet Chocolate finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon Butter
- Marzipan for mushroom decoration
Instructions
- Heat oven to 375ºF.
- Line bottom of 15x10x1-inch baking pan with parchment paper, set aside.
- Arrange clean thin cotton towel (about 34×20 inches) onto counter.
- Sprinkle generously with unsweetened cocoa, set aside.
- Combine flour, ¼ cup cocoa, baking powder and salt in bowl, set aside.
- Combine sugar, eggs and vanilla in another bowl, beat at high speed 5 minutes or until fluffy, thick and pale yellow color.
- Stir melted butter into egg mixture, gently stir flour mixture into egg mixture until just combined.
- Spread into prepared pan.
- Bake 10-12 minutes or until center springs back when touched.
- Run knife around edges to loosen sides.
- Turn cake out onto prepared towel, remove parchment paper.
- Roll up cake in towel, set aside to cool.
- Using a mixer, eat ½ cup chilled whipping cream and ¼ cup powdered sugar at medium-high speed, scraping bowl often, until stiff peaks form.
- Shape marzipan into mushrooms as best you can 🙂 (if using)
- Keep in the fridge until ready to decorate cake.
- Place chocolate ganache (or chocolate hazelnut spread) and cream cheese in another bowl, beat at medium speed until well mixed.
- Gently stir whipped cream mixture into chocolate mixture until just combined.
- Cover, refrigerate at least one hour.
- Combine chopped chocolate and whipping cream in bowl and set it over a pot of simmering water to melt.
- Add butter at the end and set aside to cool slightly.
- Unroll cake, spread small with chilled filling evenly
- Reroll, refrigerate until ready to assemble.
- Slice a third of the cake roll at an angle. Set aside
- Put larger cake log first on a serving plate then attach the smaller piece so it angles out like a branch, secure with toothpicks or wooden skewers, as needed.
- Carefully frost sides of cake.
- Draw lines in frosting, using fork or tip of dinner knife to make it look like a tree bark
- Sprinkle powdered sugar all over the cake
- Garnish as you like with marzipan mushroom, or some rosemary sprigs or pine cones
- Enjoy. Happy Holidays!
