Since my Thanksgiving Cornucopia was so much fun, I decided to tackle another favorite recipe from my childhood - the Buche de Noel or Yule Log. Between wrapping presents, hosting a holiday party or two and making a full Christmas dinner, my mom would somehow also find the time to whip up this spectacular dessert for the center of our holiday table. She was and still is truly a super-woman. I, on the other hand, am an exhausted woman! I’m not going to lie to you, this recipe is a lot of work but the results are beautiful!
I followed a recipe that I found on Epicurious for a Tiramisu Yule Log and Meringue Mushrooms. The recipes are a little long so I won’t go into the details here. Instead, I’ll give you an overview of the whole process, highlighting a few key steps.
I started by making the sponge for the cake.
It should be poured out onto a jelly-roll pan which measures 10.5X15.5 inches.
I only had a rimmed sheet tray, so that’s what I used. It was a few inches larger which resulted in a thinner sponge, but worked perfectly well.
The sponge only needed about 10 minutes to bake and must be baked until it just springs back. Too firm and you won’t be able to roll it up!
While the cake baked, I made the meringue for the decorative mushrooms.
The mushrooms take about 2 hours to bake, so while they baked, I made the sponge cake filling by mixing fresh whipped cream, mascarpone, cinnamon, sugar and liquor.
I filled and rolled the cake and frosted it with some leftover filling.
I skipped making the ganache because, by this time, I was exhausted!
For decoration, I melted some dark chocolate and used a large skewer to create chocolate lines along the log. Then I tucked the meringue mushrooms all around and added an adorable little Gingerbread Man leftover from The Chopping Block's Holiday Cookie Exchange class. Voila!
If you don’t quite have an entire day to bake up a Buche de Noel, there's still plenty of time to whip up some holiday cookies from our 12 Days of Holiday Cookies download. Until the New Year arrives and the diets begin, let's continue to indulge in sweets!
