Chocolate Yule Log / Bûche de Noël

Bûche de Noël is not a cake I would choose to bake on my own. It seems daunting. On the other hand, who can resist making one, at least once. Not for the history book, but with our friends at Cook-the-book-Fridays in a month of celebrations. There’s something special about creating a holiday classic.

Never before have I made an elaborate cake like this. Rolling up and filling a sponge cake, build a yule log with branches, put icing on them and decorate a seasonal landscape, all look so complicated and intimidating. I better develop a game plan for the task.

My plan is to split up the baking in two days. Here are my detailed notes below outlining the multi-day plan to make David Lebovitz’s bûche de Noël from My Paris Kitchen. Breaking down the recipe in small steps over time makes the project more fun and approachable. This plan keeps me focused and relaxed all at once. All the holiday chaos fell to the wayside.

Alas, despite all the mental preparations, I still managed to mess up and missed an important step. What I didn’t do was to roll up the sponge cake fresh off the oven in a towel at the end of step 5. As a result, a stiff cake made it difficult to roll up tightly and wrap in plastic in step 8. Well, all I saw were cracks. It’s disheartening! I thought about starting over with another sponge cake.

Eventually, I resolved to hack some of the baking and sushi gadgets: a baguette pan and a sushi rolling mat. Using the sushi mat, I tried to roll the cake in a tight log as much as possible. Then placed it on the baguette pan to rest in the fridge. Roll again and rest. That seemed to have worked well. When I unwrapped the log the next day, I was happy to see a sturdy round structure ready to be built into a tree branch. Hey, No need to start over.

The gadgets I used to tighten and shape the log.

Making the meringue mushrooms is fun but time-consuming.

The tree branch covered with chocolate icing.

The most time-consuming step was making the meringue mushrooms. David Lebovitz says to make 22 round mushroom caps and stems, each. In retrospect, we only need a few good ones to decorate the bûche de Noël. By all measures, the mushrooms look so lovely and realistic. I’m glad to have gone through the exercise and produced something beautiful. It’s an art project by itself.

The scene of the rustic yule log is absolutely fantastical and festive. It’s worth every bit of my time, efforts and anxiety. If you have any reservations about making the bûche de Noël, I’ll say — jump in with both feet. It’s not a difficult task, only a long process with more steps than usual. In the end, you’re creating holiday memories. The satisfaction is unrivaled. (My husband was quite impressed with my endeavor and result.) Happy Holidays!

The log is tightly shaped with some extra help, despite missing a step.

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