Buche de Noel

Okay, so I've been gone for a while....and I'm going to blame the holiday season until I can't blame it anymore! With all the shopping, cooking, pastry finals, and LIFE in general I have little time to write witty entries to my blog. For this, I am extremely sorry. So to try and win your forgiveness I present you a Buche de Noel (aka Yule Log)!

In class the other day, we made a Charlotte Royale, which if you don't know, is a 1950's "elegant" dessert consisting of raspberry bavarian cream and jelly roll pinwheels. After making the jelly roll I began think about how I can turn this into chocolate, surprising right? Well I went looking online and found a couple recipes for Chocolate Swiss Rolls. I even found a video of how to roll up your cake. I mean, in essence its a BIG Little Debbie Ho-Ho so I figured it wouldn't be that hard to whip up. One recipe really stood out which was a Yule Log recipe that included adorable meringue mushrooms and I new that I had to make it.

The cake is a Sponge cake, which means it mainly relies on beaten egg whites and yolks for structure. It may sound a little daunting, but it's actually pretty easy. The inside is whipped cream, flavored with a small amount of espresso powder because I'm coffee CRAZY. Anywho, the cake rolled amazingly well, without a single crack! I used Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream for the outside and dusted it with a little powdered sugar to give it a 'snowy' effect. For my first sculpted cake I think it looks very realistic, haha. I'm not really sure how you could mess up a log though.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Chocolate Sponge Cake (adapted from U Try it blog)

5 eggs separated

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoon sugar, divided
Pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso

2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup dark cocoa

1/2 cup cake flour

1. Preheat the oven to 375F. Grease a 18 x 13 jelly roll pan and line bottom with parchment paper.

2. In a stand mixer beat egg whites until frothy. Slowly add half the sugar, while continuing to beat, until the whites reach a medium peak. Set aside.

3. In another bowl beat the egg yolks until pale and fluffy (2-3 minutes). Add the vanilla, instant espresso, heavy cream, and melted butter and mix until incorporated. Sift the cake flour and cocoa over the egg yolk mixture and fold in until blended.

4. Mix 1/4 of the beaten whites into the egg yolk mixture to lighten the batter. Then, fold in the remaining whites until incorporated, but don't over fold!

5. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 8-10 minutes or until cake springs back when touched. Remove from oven and let cool in pan.