Bûche de Noël/Buche de Noel/Yule Log

[Mike B4]

Ok, here it is.......new and improved, since I blurred out the cruddy background.

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OH MY simply OUTSTANDING. can't wait for the demo pics.

Mike

[JeanneCake]

Wow, really beautiful Annie!

The buche we do are much more streamlined - they have to be when you're making 2000 of them! Mousse in a mold with sponge on the bottom. We used to pour ganache over them, then pipe buttercream on and decorate with plastic toys, but we're spraying them with cocoa butter this year and using different molds. Quite a different effect overall than your work of art! (and I only have about 1350 left to make!)

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How many can you make at a time, Jennifer? What are your molds shaped like? Sort of half cylindrical? Personally I think mousse in a mold with sponge on the bottom sounds far tastier than the ganache filled, rum soaked sponge roll that I use......! I also love that look of the velvety sprayed cocoa butter! You don't happen to know where your bakery purchased their molds, do you?

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I thought I saw some in the PBC Catalogue - it's pretty far to go to get, though. Seems as if Delmarle/flexipan would have something similar.

[chefpeon]

For buche de noel advice, do not ask FoodTV celeb Tyler Florence.

I watched Iron Chef America: Battle of the Holiday Desserts last night, and watching him try to roll his espresso soaked lemon chiffon (huh?) was a laugh riot. Not to mention seeing the filling that was supposed to be italian meringue buttercream, which was actually soup.

Of course, I have to give kudos to any chef who thinks that they can whip up 4-5 spectacular desserts in less than an hour......you can't. That's why there's not too many pastry chef battles on Food TV.

[Kouign Aman]

Made one of these this weekend. < 2 hours, start to finish. Yahoo!

I filled and frosted with something that I expect has a technical name, but that we refer to as faux mousse at home: melted chocolate folded into whipped cream. It did a lovely bark with little effort.

I want to improve two things (which are fortunately interrelated) before making the next one for Xmas.

I used Joy of Cooking's chocolate genoise. It was not so very chocolate.

Does anyone have a recipe for a dark colored, very chocolately genoise? JOC called for 1/3 c clarified butter in the batter. Would it be a disaster to replace half of that with melted chocolate? (more solids, less fat, going for the color & flavor).

The interrelated thing is that my cake and my filling were darned near the same color. I want to increase the contrast.

If the cake idea above wont work, then I'll darken the filling.

A third possibility I'm wondering about is: instead of painting the cake with liqueur or flavored syrup before rolling, perhaps painting it with melted nutella, to get a dark edge in the roll. Although the kahlua tasted muy very good and was very easy!

[chefpeon]

Ok, here's the demo thingy I promised.

First, make your swiss roll, and once you've successfully rolled it up, stick it in the freezer.

Once frozen, remove it from the freezer and cut off each end at an angle.

Stick the flat side of each end against the log in whatever fashion you wish and attach with chocolate buttercream.

Next, use a lighter chocolate buttercream to pipe the rings onto each end of the log. This is just one way of doing this. I actually prefer to take a palette knife and smooth on the lighter colored buttercream on each end and make the rings with an airbrush. But the piping way is faster for me and I have to crank these babies out, so I'm not using my airbrush this time around.

Next, use the darker chocolate buttercream in a pastry bag with a large plain tip and pipe the buttercream on in "stripes". Make sure the ends of the buttercream "stripes" extend out over the ends of the log. You'll see why later. You don't have to be neat about it. Actually the less neat, the better.

Here's the log with all the stripes on it. Now it's going into the freezer for a little while to firm up the buttercream. About a half hour.

Take the log out of the freezer, and with a sharp knife cut off all those pointy things that were extending out over the ends of your log so the buttercream is now flush with the ends of your log.

Next, take the pointy end of your paring knife and go nuts making grooves all over your log. Deep ones, shallow ones.......and don't be neat about it. The less neat the better.

Now, with very very clean hands, use the warmth of them to smooth out the grooves you just made. Scrape off the excess buttercream from your board and the log. To give the grooves extra depth and realness, use an airbrush with black color and spray into some of the grooves. That's what I did on the log that is pictured upthread. Back in the day when I was in a shop that allowed me to fuss.

Here is a picture of four of the logs I made that day. You can see that two of them had lighter rings and two had darker rings......that was so I could tell the two different flavors of cakes apart.

And voila.....the fun part..........I added a modeling chocolate cardinal, holly, berries, and a banner, then sprinkled with a product I have called "Sweet Snow" (it looks like powdered sugar, but won't dissolve under refrigeration-it's actually cocoa butter sweetened with dextrose.) Then I sprinkled it with edible glitter (hard to see), and I'm done.

Just one of many ways you can finish off a Yule Log.

To make my job extra fun, when I'm making these guys, I sing this song, from the Ren and Stimpy Show:

What rolls down stairs,

alone or in pairs,

rolls over your neighbor's dog?

What's great for a snack,

and fits on your back,

it's LOG LOG LOG!

It's LOG......LOG, it's big,

it's heavy,

it's wood!

It's LOG......LOG, it's better than bad,

it's GOOD!

Have I been doing this job too long???

[gfron1]

Thanks for taking the time to do this. But don't forget the contract states that all creations made during demos are to be sent to the host for sampling

[jumanggy]

[Mr.Burns]EXcellent.[/MrBurns] Annie, those are beautiful! Thanks for the demo. I've never tried making a roll before (right now the main deterrent is how expensive the filling can get).

Uh-oh.. the image with your production line in the back is making me all sorts of excited. That's a bad sign!

[gfron1]

Now that I've done this once, I understand all of the instructions in the demo much better. So, next time this will be much prettier, but here is my first ever buche de noel:

No modelling chocolate to decorate with. One cool thing is that I added some Valhrona cocoa into my buttercream and didn't mix well (on purpose) and it gave me some streakiness on the bark which looked cool. My biggest problem is that my filling didn't set well enough and it oozed. I could have sealed it in with buttercream, but I wasn't careful enough with that, so there were seams, but oh well... people were impressed and it tasted good. It was chocolate with chestnut cream.

[doughgirl]

Here is a picture of four of the logs I made that day. You can see that two of them had lighter rings and two had darker rings......that was so I could tell the two different flavors of cakes apart.

Totally off topic here but does that machine in the background have a FACE? lol That's both disturbing and kind of neat.

[chefpeon]

I was wondering if someone would notice that.

That's my lovely crappy sheeter. My boss never buys equipment new (smart), but he waits

to pounce on the ones that are super cheap for a reason (they suck). This sheeter has uneven

rollers, which means half my dough is thicker than the other half, and the belt on one side keeps

wanting to slip off the rollers no matter how much I tighten the knobs. Oh yeah, and a roller pin keeps falling out and I keep having to hammer it back in which is a major hassle. But it DOES have a smiley face. And we all know that smiley faces on your sheeter make for a brighter day. Yay.

Ok, back to the topic......or not, since tomorrow is Xmas after all......

Wow, gfron, you followed my demo! Quite well too! I'm glad somebody got something out of it! I'm also glad you discovered that leaving your buttercream a little unmixed gives it that streaky "barky" look. T'is true!

Merry merry everybody.

[JeanneCake]

And I was lusting after that sheeter! I thought the face was pretty funny too....

I logged in over 1000 cookies this season and have "cookie elbow" (I don't play tennis so I told the dr we can't call it that). The tenth circle of hell is being in the food business during the holidays - especially if you are a small business.

Merry merry...

[CanadianBakin']

Thanks for the demo Annie. I'm not sure why but I wouldn't have thought of piping it on to get the buttercream thick. Great idea! I would have just kept slopping it on and making a huge mess.

[Mike B4]

So cool thanks so much.

Mike

[Darcie B]

I made my first attempt at a Yule Log on Christmas Eve. I went a little crazy with the meringue mushrooms but I didn't have another use for them so I stuck them all on the log. I used Rose Levy Berenbaum's recipe for the cake, a whipped cream/cream cheese/Kahlua filling, and a standard chocolate ganache for the icing (except the lighter parts are buttercream). My husband made a ganache mouse with sliced almond ears that was too cute. Someone ate it before I could get a photo.

Thanks to everyone here for the demonstrations.

[chefpeon]

I really like your log Darcie!

Knife marks in a ganache are just as realistic looking, if not more so, than my buttercream method.

Hey, did your RLB cake roll up ok?

I've been having a hard time getting my chocolate rolls to roll. I have no problem with my white ones.

[Darcie B]

Hey, did your RLB cake roll up ok?

I've been having a hard time getting my chocolate rolls to roll. I have no problem with my white ones.

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It cracked some, but I may have overbaked it a little (it never did pass her test for being done by springing back). RLB has you cool the cake flat and then roll - other recipes I've seen say to roll warm, then un-roll, fill and re-roll. I don't know if that makes a difference. There is no flour in her recipe - just eggs, sugar and melted chocolate. It had a good flavor and was moist even with an extra 4 minutes in the oven. I would try it again, this time taking it out earlier.

[bripastryguy]

This is the ones I did this year

[ohmyganache]

Nice looking yule logs!

Here's ours...

[QbanCrackr]

heres a picture of my first buche...ever lol. it was a bit intimidating seeing how i've never made the cake for it, but it actually wasn't that bad! it was pretty fun actually

i threw it in the freezer until i have a chance to make some decorations...i've got alot of fondant laying around here could i just use that? or would you recommend something else to make like little leafs and hollys and whatnot

meringue mushrooms, well thats another story...i'll attempt those some other day hehe...maybe youtube has a video tutorial on how to make 'em

i noticed afterwards in this thread that most everyone cuts off the stump at an angle (i cut mine at a 90, next time i'll make the adjustments)

so anywho, heres the pic...feel free to critique and let me know what i can change and also what i can add next time! i'm hoping to make a few for friends/family for the holidays

[QbanCrackr]

update, i cut off the edges to show the rings inside, made some quick holly berries + leaves & some fondant mushrooms...just wish it was bigger but it looks decent for a first attempt no?

[heidih]

I like the holly and must admit to a lifelong affection for the meringue mushrooms with cacao "dirt". I agree that seeing the layers enhances the look but worry about the cake drying out. Perhaps a light glaze or syrup that will still allow the layers to show but also protect the cake? I made one in my teens and have not attempted since, so my hat is off to you for your first foray into buche.

[AnnieWilliams]

I know it's a bit early, but people around me are already pestering me for Christmas goodies. Last year I made three buches using Rose Levy Beranbaum's vanilla biscuit roulade. While the biscuit was a dream to roll, I found it very thin once baked. I definitely used the correct pan size (I had to go all over God's creation to find a 12x17) and the batter was mixed properly. I'm thinking this is just the nature of a biscuit, but I'm not trained in pastry so I don't really know.

I was hoping someone would be willing to share their buche sponge recipes with me. I liked the biscuit because it was basically indestructible. You roll it while it's still warm and then cool it, then fill and re-roll. Not one of the three I did last year cracked. Like I mentioned before, the thinness is what I didn't like. I almost felt like the buches were too skinny, and I rolled them from the short end. I do plan to try Rose's chocolate buche recipe, the one with no flour.

Also, what do you prefer for fillings and icings? I just used an Italian meringue buttercream for a filling and then iced with ganache. This year I was thinking of using a French buttercream. Initially I thought about using a mousseline but I really need to be able to make some things in advance since I work full time at my "other" job.

Thanks in advance!

Annie

[janeer]

I will dig out my recipe, from my old cooking school, this weekend. It is very good. I have not made RLB's recipe, but she is reliable.

[DianaM]

Annie, could you please post or PM me RLB's biscuit recipe? As it happens, I have a 12x17 and was just looking for a biscuit to fit this pan.

I would be eternally grateful!

[AnnieWilliams]

Thank you all for your replies. Thanks Heidi for the link. I had that one bookmarked from a while back and it does have some good info.

Diana, here is the recipe I used.

http://www.joyofbaki...eorBiscuit.html

Like I said, it is a great recipe to work with. I just was hoping to have something a little thicker, and a tried and true chocolate recipe for a 12x17 would be great. Also, if anyone has any good filling suggestions or a preferred icing they use for their buches I would be interested in that as well.

Thanks again for your replies. I am open to any additional suggestions.

Edited October 18, 2012 by AnnieWilliams (log)