sponge cake | Cecile's Cuisine

Christmas would not be Christmas without a buche de Noel or Yule Log. Usually I make the Buche de Noel for Christmas day. And I always, always make the one my mom used to make. It brings so many memories…And I posted the recipe last year. Check it out.

Well on Christmas eve, we always go to my in-laws for the “Reveillon”. My mother -in-law prepares the tradition German “Pasteten” and the rest of the family brings various dishes to help her out. It can be sides, appetizers, and desserts… So guess what I am in charge for?? desserts of course.

Every year i always bring a “lighter dessert” to serve for the evening. It is never a cake, because by the time desserts come, it is always very late and we are already full. In the past I brought various ice-cream and sorbets that i made. This year I brought a frozen desserts out of mango and raspberry sorbet, and a buche de noel. I know.. not that light, but this buche de Noel was made out of chocolate and seemed to be a lighter version of the original recipe. so this is what I served and this is also the one I will share with you today. It is so so easy, and everybody loved it.

Ingredients for 1 buche de Noel for 6-8 people:

For the Cake:

6 eggs separated
150 gr. of sugar
50 gr. of cocoa powder

For the “chocolate frosting:

250 gr. of chocolate chips ( I used bittersweet Ghiradhelli chocolate chips)
200 gr. of butter
50 gr. of brown sugar
2 tbsp of milk
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract

For the Filling:

300 ml. of heavy cream
2 tbsp of granulated sugar

Place the egg yolks in a large bowl and add the sugar. Whip well so as so get a fluffy whitish mixture.

Add the cocoa and mix well. Set aside. In a kitchen mixer, whip the egg whites into a meringue with soft peaks. Then carefully with a spatula, mix the “meringue” into the chocolate mixture.

Pour this mixture into a flexipan and cook in a warm oven at 350 for 12 minutes.

When the cake is cooked, let it cool for a few minutes before rolling it into itself while still warm. You will need to do this while it is warm, or the cake will break if you do not.

While the cake is cooling. Prepare the chocolate frosting. In a microwave bowl, place the chocolate chips, and the butter and microwave for 2 minutes or until the butter and the chocolate have melted. With a small whisk, mix well so that the mixture becomes homogeneous. Add the brown sugar and microwave for another 1 minute. Let it cool. When it is lukewarm, place this mixture into the fridge or even freezer to cool it ever more.

In a mixer, add the heavy cream and the sugar and beat until the cream becomes a whipped cream with hard peaks.

To prepare the buche de noel, unroll the cake. Spread some of the chocolate frosting on the cake. Then place the cake into the fridge for the frosting to harden. When the frosting is hard, spread the whipped cream all over the chocolate frosting. Carefully roll the cake onto itself.

With the rest of the frosting, “frost” the outside of the log. Then with a fork, make marks on the cake make it look like wood grain. Decorate as you like.

I decorated my cake with chocolate leaves, red chocolate covered hazelnuts to make them look like holly fruit. I also molded mushrooms out of marzipan paste. When you are finished decorating, place the cake in the fridge to keep it cool. But take it 0ut of the fridge for 30 minutes before eating it.

Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!

The French traditional cake for Christmas is a Buche de Noel. This traditional dessert is served near Christmas (as Noël refers to the birth of Christ) in France, Belgium, Canada, Lebanon, Vietnam, and several other francophone countries and former French colonies. As the name indicates, the cake is generally prepared, presented, and garnished so as to look like a log ready for the fire used in the ancient fire-festival of the winter solstice.

A Yule log was a large and extremely hard log which is burned in the hearth as a part of traditional Yule or Christmas celebrations in several European cultures. It was also associated with the Winter Solstice festival or the Twelve Days of Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or Twelfth Night.

The tradition of the Yule log was discontinued as large fireplaces became an increasingly rarer feature of the average living room. The dessert is usually in the form of a large rectangular yellow cake spread with frosting and rolled up into a cylinder – one end is then lopped off and stood on end to indicate the rings of the “log.” It is not known when the dessert, or its name, originated. It is known to have existed by 1945, and apparently, a tradition of jam rolls served at Christmas is attested for Poitou-Charentes since the 19th century (Wikipedia).

The traditional bûche is made from a Génoise or other sponge cake, generally baked in a large, shallow Swiss roll pan, frosted, rolled to form a cylinder, and frosted again on the outside. The most common combination is a basic yellow sponge cake, frosted and filled with chocolate buttercream; however, many variations on the traditional recipe exist, possibly including chocolate cakes, ganache and espresso or otherwise-flavored frostings and fillings.

The recipe that I am presenting today is one that I learned from my mom, who too learned it from her mom. I usually prepare my Buche de Noel with a chocolate frosting on the outside and a coffee or vanilla on the inside:

Ingredients: 10 eggs, 6 sticks of butter, 4 oz of dark bittersweet chocolate, cocoa powder, sugar, flour, baking powder, powdered sugar, 1 bag of green colored chocolate chips of 4 oz of chocolate chips and green coloring.

For the Yule log cake:

Break 4 eggs into a mixing bowl, add 3/4 cup of sugar and beat until the egg mixture is becoming foamy and is doubling in size. In another bowl, place 1/2 cups of flour and 3/4 tsp of baking powder, 1/4 tsp f salt and mix well. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture into the egg and mix gently. Empty the content of the egg mixture into the flexipan and cook in a warm oven at 400 for 8-10 minutes or until the dough is looking light brown. Remove the cake pan from the oven, Flip the flexipan over a roulpat and roll the cake into a “jelly roll”. Let the dough cool.

Vanilla frosting: 3 large egg whites at room temperature, 3/4 cup of sugar, 3 sticks of butter at room temperature, 1 tbsp of vanilla aroma.

Chocolate frosting: 3 large egg whites at room temperature, 3/4 cup of sugar, 3 sticks of butter at room temperature, 1 tbsp of vanilla aroma, 4 oz of chocolate chips melted and cool.

In a large bowl combine the egg white and the sugar. Set the bowl over simmering water. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and the egg white mixture is warm to touch ( 160F). Remove from the saucepan and whip with an electronic mixer until the mixture is fluffy, and holds peaks. Slowly add the butter a little bit at a time, and continue beating until the frosting is smooth and creamy.

Repeat the same for the chocolate frosting. At the end, add 4 oz of melted cool chocolate.

To fix the cake, unroll the cake. Spoon the vanilla mixture over the inside of the cake ( you will have too much frosting). Then roll the cake over itself. Then spread the chocolate frosting over the jelly roll, trying to make it look like an uneven wood trunk. Cut one small piece of the cake and place it onto the top to make like a cut-out branch. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the log to make it look like snow.

For the holly leaves: 4 oz of green colored chocolate chips and plastic holly leaves. Nerd candies.

With a pastry brush, brush the leaves with the melted chocolate. Let them cool and repeat the process 3 times for the leaves to be thick enough. Peel off the leaves and place on the buche as you like. Place a few red nerds to make the fruits of the holly. Et voila!

Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!