Buche De Noel or Yule Log
One of my favorite cakes to make during the holiday season is this traditional buche de noel cake. This buche de noel recipe is a lovely holiday classic for the French, made during Christmas time.
The name roulade is French, and that’s where this cake is famous. If you want impress guests and family then I would highly recommend you try a hand at this cake. It does have few steps, but everything is so quick. You don’t have to be a great decorator, as it resembles a log of wood so rustic.
This chocolate cake roulade is a breeze to make and its filled with lightly sweetened whipped cream and cherries and frosted with chocolate ganache.
I filled the cake roll with whipped cream as the cake layer is very light and airy so you want to keep it light in filling and frosting too.
There are four steps to making a yule log or buche.
- Cocoa Sponge
- Whipped cream filling with cherries
- Ganache frosting
- Decorations
Cocoa Sponge – Making sponge is easier than I thought. You whip eggs and sugar until it looks light, fluffy and light yellow in color. Some people, whip yolks and whites separately. But I don’t really see a need to that. You do need a standing mixer or hand blender for this step. Then you add other ingredients and fold them in the whipped egg sugar mixture. It’s very important to fold the dry ingredients and not mix them as you would do normally with other cake batters. You want to keep the air in the batter which makes it light airy cake. I would highly suggest using parchment paper, it makes it easier to transfer the cake to towel.
Cake is baked in a half sheet pan. It takes only 8-10 minutes to bake it. So quick. Then, you remove it as soon as it comes out of the oven in a kitchen towel dusted with confectioner’s sugar or cocoa powder. Roll the it into a log with the kitchen towel and let it cool down.
I usually whip the heavy cream for filling while cake is cooling down. It takes another 10 minutes. Drain the liquid from cherries and roughly chop it. Stir it in the whipped cream or sprinkle it on the cream when you fill the log.
So, once the log cools down a bit, gently carefully open it and fill it with the whipped cream and then again form the log. Cut a small piece diagonally, to attach it on the side to make it resemble a log. Then frost it. I would suggest that before frosting it move it on the platter you want to serve it. Once you frost it, it becomes tricky to move it.
It does not matter how you roll the log horizontally or vertically. Although, the horizontal way yields longer log and vertical way will yield smaller log. That’s the only difference.
Finally, the log is frosted with my favorite frosting Ganache. I always recommend a good quality of melting chocolate for making ganache as that makes a huge difference.
Last part is the decorations, the most known decoration is meringue mushrooms made using egg whites. You can also use aquafaba to make vegan mushrooms. I would say meringue mushrooms are optional. You can also make mushrooms using meiji mushrooms cookies available at Asian grocery stores or if you really creative make them using marzipan.
The other festive décor includes frosted cranberries and rosemary.
When I say making yule log cake is easy, I really mean it. I have only prepared this twice. If your roulade breaks, don’t worry as long as you can frost it. It happened to me. But, once I frosted it, you cannot even see the cracks.
My roulade is adapted from Mary Berry’s recipe. However, I have made some changes to it.
Buche De Noel
Ingredients
Cocoa Sponge
- 4 larger eggs
- ½ cup sugar 3 ½ oz
- 2 ½ oz all purpose or cake flour ½ cup + 2 tbsp
- 1 ½ oz cocoa powder 5 2/3 tbsps
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp vegetable or plain oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
- 3-4 tbsp Confectioner’s sugar or cocoa powder for dusting
Whipped Cream and Cherries
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup maraschino cherries
Ganache
- ½ cup Heavy Cream
- 1 cup Semi-sweet milk chocolate Guittard
- 1 tsp vanilla extract/essence
Meringue Mushrooms
- 1 egg white or 1/2 cup water from a can of chickpea Vegan option
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
- Pinch salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp melted chocolate
- 1 -2 tbsp cocoa powder dusting
Rosemary sprigs and Cranberries for decorations
Instructions
Cocoa Sponge
- Preheat your oven to 400°F and line a half sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Take room temperature eggs and sugar in a stand mixer. Whip them for 6-7 minutes or until you see the batter turning light, fluffy and light yellow in color. The batter will have significantly doubled in volume.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder in the batter. Fold them into the batter using a spatula. Be gentle and careful while folding the dry ingredients as you do not want to remove the air from it. Add the rest of the ingredient
- Transfer the batter in the prepared baking sheet. Use the spatula to spread the batter to the corners of the sheet pan. Don’t tap the pan or move the pan side to side – you don’t want to ruin the air bubbles you created. Bake the cake for 7-8 minutes, or until the cake springs back when gently pressed by the tip of your finger. Do not make over bake it.
- Remove the cake from the oven and prepare a kitchen towel by sprinkling powdered sugar all over it. Flip the cake out onto the towel and peel the parchment paper off. Lightly dust the top also with confectioner’s sugar.
- Grab one of the sides of the cake and roll it towards the other side, rolling the towel with it as you go. Let the cake remain in this rolled shape until it’s completely cool along with the towel wrapped around it.
Whipped Cream with Cherries
- Whip up the heavy cream in your stand mixer on medium speed for few minutes, or until it has soft peaks. Add in the vanilla extract and the 1 tbsp of sugar and continue to whisk for few more minutes. Stir in the chopped cherries or any other fruits you are using in the whipped cream.
- Unroll the roll of cake carefully not to break it and use an offset spatula to spread the whipped cream all over, leaving a very small border around the edges of the cake. Gently roll the cake back up just like you did before, take help of the towel to not get it messy. I rolled the cake tightly with the towel and put it in the refrigerator.
Ganache
- Make the ganache by melting heavy cream in a microwave or stove top until its slightly bubbly and hot. Add the roughly chopped chocolate and using a hand whisk or a spoon, mix it well until all the chocolate is melted and it looks smooth. Add vanilla essence. Let the ganache set at room temperature for 10 minutes or until it looks thickened.
- Remove the log/roulade from the fridge and remove the towel. Cut a small piece from the sides of the log if they look uneven or dry. Cut another small piece diagonally and attach it on either side of the actual log using some of that ganache. Using an offset spatula, frost the rest of the log. For this step I like to move the log and frost on the serving platter. It might be tricky to move it after frosting.
- Take a fork and lightly make streaks or marks using the fork to resemble log.
- Place the decorations on the log or on the sides of the log.
- If you want, you can dust it with some more confectioner’s sugar to resemble some snow.
Meringue or Aquafaba Mushrooms
- Meringue Mushrooms – Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In mixing bowl, beat the egg whites or aquafaba, with cream of tartar and salt together on high speed for 2 minutes. Add the sugar and vanilla extract and keep whisking it until you see stiff glossy peaks. When you lift the whisk and the whipped meringue does not fall back, its done.
- Using a plastic bag, or piping bag pipe the meringue in small circles for mushroom tops and half inch cones resembling stems. You can use a piping tip Wilton 2A. It is not necessary because you can still pipe it without the tip. I usually make more mushrooms than I might use, so that I have enough to select the best ones. You can pipe all of them and bake them. They do not go bad, and kids always love extra meringue to munch on. If the caps have tips, lightly using moistened fingers dab it. Bake the meringues for 2 hours and then turn off the heat and let them cool down in the oven. They will stiffen up.
- Once they are completely cool, take the tops/caps of mushrooms and poke a small hole on the back.
- Melt some chocolate in microwave, take the stem dip them one by one in the chocolate and attach/stick them in the hole of the caps. Repeat with all the meringue caps and stems and let the chocolate cool down completely and they will stick to each other. You can lightly scrape off the mushroom if they have any peaks. I usually prefer to make them a day before I am planning to make actual Buche de noel or you can also make them while your log is cooling in the fridge. So that you do no get over whelmed in one day.
- Dust them with some cocoa powder for the effect of mud. You can also smear some of that melted chocolate with your fingers.
- Rosemary and cranberries – Lightly use water on both and dust them with granulated sugar. It will stick and create effect of snow.
- Decorations are optional.
Notes
- You have to roll the log as soon as it comes out of the oven while it’s still hot otherwise it will break.
- Decorations are optional. If you prepare the mushrooms a day in advance, everything else takes less time.
- Vegan Mushrooms – I gave you an option for vegan mushrooms. However, the sponge has eggs.
XO, Devangi