Buche de Noel is a jelly-roll style chocolate cake with chocolate cream that's decorated to look like a yule log for an incredibly delicious Christmas dessert!
Not my first time making it, but in the past I was not fully happy with the results. I show you two ways to decorate it, but will share only the most recent recipe, cake portion courtesy of Helen Fletcher, my beloved virtual mentor!
BUCHE DE NOEL(adapted from Helen Fletcher’s Pastrieslikeapro)
for the chocolate spongecake:¾ cup sifted cake flour (75 grams)¼ cup sifted cocoa (25 grams)¼ teaspoon…
This updated version of the classic French bûche de noël is by the recipe developer and cookbook author Erin McDowell. PureWow sez:
Short on time? Swap the meringue “snow” for something simple like chocolate shavings, or skip the homemade miniature meringue-and-raspberry mushrooms altogether. You could also use store-bought frosting for your “snow.”
So as someone who loves elaborate baking projects, I've always kinda wanted to bake a Buche de Noel, but I unfortunately never had the opportunity or occasion. It's just me, my wife, and our cats, and the cats can't help with eating a giant cake. (For their own health. They would love to help eat a cake if I let them.)
This year I decided that if I didn't have an occasion, I would make an occasion, so I invited some friends to my house yesterday for a "Please Help Me Eat This Buche De Noel" Party.
Y'all... I fucking delivered.
This incredible cake consists of a vanilla sponge with a vanilla buttercream frosting, brushed with maple syrup and filled with a maple custard whipped cream, decorated with maple meringues, maple sugar crystalized moss, sugared rosemary, and sugared cranberries. It tasted absolutely as good as it looked!
I'd never done a proper sponge (meringue folded into cake batter) before, and not everything was a total success (I tried to make maple spun sugar to use as the moss decoration, but I'd never done it before and something clearly went wrong, because it seized and crystallized, so I just used the tinted maple sugar as the moss which also looked great!), but I learned a lot in the process and I'm so, so happy with the outcome.
A portrait of the baker with her creation.
It was also a delight to get to share such an incredible baking success with friends on the last day of 2023. The energy was wonderful, and I'm going to try and take that feeling forward into the new year.
May your 2024 be full of friends, laughter, and elaborate, delicious creations!
my family hasn’t been properly appreciating this on instagram so you’ll all see my cake too (buche de noel: chocolate chiffon cake with chocolate buttercream and ganache, topped with sugared cranberries + rosemary + cinnamon meringue mushrooms)
The face of a woman who has never had Christmas KFC, a Christmas cake, or a romantic Christmas date like the anime and dramas depict.
Instead she has a seven course meal complete with a buche de noel, coordinating wine pairings, and elder members of the family that spend the night snarking at, shouting at, and crying at each other.
They pull it together for midnight mass and the accompanying photo call, and then try not to speak with each other for the rest of Christmas Day.