Thursday, December 23, 2010

Double Chocolate Yule Log - A Success


Christmas is coming soon! What are your Christmas plans? Have you thought of making a Yule log for this Christmas? Remember my last year's Yule log. Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong. The ganache was hard as chocolate and the génoise cracked while I was rolling it. Well it is not happening this year! Like in science, you analyze carefully what went wrong and hope that all goes well the second time. It would be a boring post if I follow my last year's recipe. This year, I'm making a whole new one. I wrote down on paper all possible flavors of frosting, génoise and filling. The goal is to find the best matching flavors and also, the structure should be esthetically eye-catching.


Here is what I came up with. I decided this year to make a chocolate génoise with a vanilla cream filling. Instead of making a chocolate ganache, I chose to make a chocolate frosting. Now that I have all the recipes written down, it is the time to shop at my local supermarket and get all the missing ingredients. While going through the list of necessary ingredients carefully, I noticed that I didn't need to buy any chocolate pellets. All I had to buy is only one carton of whipping cream. As for the rest of the ingredients such as icing sugar and cocoa powder, I have it already in my pantry. That's a money saver! 

You can't believe how proud I was of the finished product when I made it last Sunday. Compared to last year, this is much better. The génoise rolled so perfectly without any cracks and the frosting was smooth, creamy and heavenly. I asked my brother to bring his friends to test out the Yule log and they all went for seconds. I can tell you that my bro never goes for seconds when it comes to desserts. I still had half of the Yule log left so I share the rest at work with whoever that hasn't left for the holidays. I'm glad that everyone enjoyed it, some even invites me to make another Yule log for the Christmas lunch at work last Tuesday. They were complaining that they didn't eat enough to satisfy their sweet tooth. 


Since I had some chocolate frosting and half of carton of whipping cream left in the fridge, I made a second Yule log without any problems. At the Christmas party, when I took out the Yule log, my friends, technicians and supervisor can't believe that the Yule log is homemade and seems like store-bought. Unfortunately, I had to forbid them from getting seconds, even a few of them were nagging me for seconds while I was cutting the Yule log and distributing to people who haven't tried it yet. In total, I shared it to about 20 people including my technicians and my supervisor. Well for the naggers, they scrapped every possible bits of chocolate frosting remaining on the parchment paper. 

If you want to make a Yule log successfully this Christmas, I have written all steps as clear as possible and took a picture of every steps. Hopefully, you don't end up like my last year's attempt. One important key point to remember, once the génoise is ready, immediately roll it once taken out of the oven. Good luck!

Makes 1 Yule log
Génoise adapted from Allrecipes
Preparation Time: 45 mins (génoise) + 10 mins (filling) + 10 mins (frosting)
Baking Time: 12 mins (génoise)
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

Chocolate Génoise
5 eggs, separated
1 cup white sugar, divided
1/2 cup cake flour ( or 7:1 all-purpose flour : cornstarch)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Vanilla Cream Filling
1 cup whipping cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp icing sugar

Creamy Chocolate Frosting
2/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup milk

Procedure

1. Oil a 15'' x 10'' x 1'' baking pan and line it with wax paper. Grease with butter and coat with flour.

2. In a large bowl, place egg whites, stand for 30 mins at room temperature.

3. In another large bowl, beat egg yolks until light and fluffy. Gradually whisk in 1/2 cup sugar until thick and pale.

4. In a small bowl, combine and sift flour, cocoa, and salt.


5. Gradually whisk in the dry ingredients into egg yolk mixture until blended. Set aside.


6. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until it starts to foam. Add in cream of tartar and gradually add 1/2 cup sugar. Beat until stiff peaks. As a test, the egg whites should not fall if you invert the bowl.


7. Incorporate 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. 

8. Fold in the remaining egg whites, 1/3 of egg whites at a time until incorporated. 


9. Preheat oven to 350F.

10. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 12 mins or until it springs back when gently pressed.


11. Meanwhile, prepare a parchment paper and dust with icing sugar.


12. Invert cake to prepared parchment paper, remove wax paper and immediately roll up the cake with the parchment paper, starting from the short side, while it is still hot and pliable. Let it cool.


13. Prepare vanilla cream filling

14. In a large bowl, beat cream until it starts to thick. Add in vanilla and icing sugar. Beat until soft peaks.


15. Unroll cooled cake and spread filling with a spatula spreader. Roll it up again. Set aside. Notice that the cake has no cracks.


16. Prepare the creamy chocolate frosting.

17. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and cocoa powder until creamy.


18. Add in milk and 1/2 cup of icing sugar. Beat until incorporated. 


19. Continue adding 1/2 cup of icing sugar until it reaches a frosting consistency.

20. Make a diagonal slice at both ends of the cake. Place it anywhere on the cake.


21. Frost cake with a spatula. Draw lines to resemble like a tree bark. Use a sieve and sprinkle with icing sugar for a snowy effect.


Et voilà! Not too difficult, right? Let me know how it turns out.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 

25 comments:

  1. One of my fave treats during Christmastime is buche de noel! Yours looks seriously good!!

    Merry X'mas! Thank you for the feedback on my blog!

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  2. delicious yule log my favourite cake this time of the year
    happy holidays

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  3. your yule log looks very victor! have not done this before thanks for sharing and Merry Xmas!

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  4. Awesome job Victor...XMas wishes to u and ur family..

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  5. Wow, great job, it looks very professional :D
    Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
    HH

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  6. Thank you for sharing Victor! This was hands down the best buche de noel I've ever had, and I'm a major fan of buches! :)

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  7. so you made not only one but two! bet this must be really good. happy christmas to you!

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  8. Great looking yule log. You had me at "double chocolate"! We have a stout Dachshund that we call our "yule log" this time of the year. ;)

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  9. This looks good, and great assembly!

    Ciao
    Alessandra

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  10. Amazing job, Victor! Really impressive! I'm glad all your hard work paid off! Merry belated Christmas!

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  11. That looks delicious!!!!Beautiful job!

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  12. Awesome job! It looks spectacular! Happy new year!

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  13. happy new year victor have a wonderful year ahead!

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  14. Great Job! Looks good and delicious.
    Happy New Year to you and all the best in 2011!

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  15. The yule log looks so pretty! Did you use natural cocoa powder in the recipe? The colour is pretty light..or is it instant cocoa drink powder?

    Happy New Year!
    Angie

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  16. Thanks for all your wonderful comments. Happy New Year to you all, all the best for 2011!

    @Angie: I'm using natural cocoa powder. Here in Canada, we commonly use Fry, made by Cadbury.

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  17. Awesome yule log.Wanted to make for new year, but didnt,Have bookmarked tis recipe.Will try it soon.Love your blog

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  18. My daughter and I made one Christmas Day. We were scared to roll it (and unroll and reroll) and scared to pipe the mushrooms but all came out perfectly. I'm not sure I could have done two! Kudos to you and your delicious confection.

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  19. Wow! It looks great. I'm too scared to make these type of cakes because I saw my cookie sheet/pan warp so I wouldn't want something like that happening if I made a cake like this. Thanks for taking your time to visit my blog too. :)

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  20. What a great looking log! I've not yet attempted the yule log. But double chocolate with such great shape. You did excellent! Bravo on no cracks.

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  21. Hey there! I actually tried out your recipe and it looks and tastes fantastic! I have a picture of it. http://ulario.deviantart.com/#/d5p1kta Thanks for sharing!

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