Holiday Chocolate Bûche de Noël

 Get into the holiday spirit with a little holiday baking. Our favourite Holiday Chocolate Bûche de Noël recipe includes a light and airy sponge, creamy chocolate icing, and whipped cream but is super simple to make!

While the holidays may look a little bit different this year, the food doesn’t have to! Our favourite Holiday Chocolate Bûche de Noël is a great way to turn on the holiday vibes. Also known as a Yule Log, a Bûche de Noël is a traditional holiday dessert made in many places worldwide like Belgium, Canada, Syria, UK, Spain, and France! The Bûche de Noël or Yule Log originated from France.

While it’s made with a light sponge and can be delicate in texture, it looks like an actual yule log. Traditionally it’s made from a genoise baked in a Swiss roll pan, iced and rolled into a cylinder, and iced on the outside. The most common is a yellow sponge with chocolate icing; however, other variations are available like ours made with a chocolate sponge.

Chocolate Bûche de Noël

Typical decorations for a Bûche de Noël include marzipan or meringue mushrooms, a bark-like texture, and icing sugar to resemble snow. We opted for a simple approach for our recipe – a drag of a fork, a dusting of icing sugar, and a sprig of fresh holly.

Ingredients:

• For the cake:
• 3 eggs
• 85 g golden caster sugar
• 75 g all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• For the icing / filling:
• 50 g butter
• 140 g dark chocolate, chopped
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 284 mL whipping cream
• 200 g icing sugar, sifted
• icing sugar and holly sprigs to decorate

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Grease and line a Swiss roll pan or rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Beat eggs with caster sugar in an electric mixer until thick and creamy – about 8-10 minutes.
4. In a separate bowl mix together all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder. Sift onto the egg mixture and fold in – be careful not to over mix or deflate the eggs. You want to sponge to be light and fluffy, and mixing vigorously will deflate it. Pour mixture into prepared pan.
5. Tilt the pan from side to side to ensure the batter is evenly spread throughout the pan. Bake until the cake springs back when lightly touched – about 10-12 minutes.
6. On a clean work surface place a sheet of parchment paper. When the cake is fully baked, tip it onto the parchment and peel off the parchment lining. While holding the paper and the cake, from the longest end, roll into a cylinder with the parchment inside and leave to cool completely.
7. To make the icing add butter and and dark chocolate to a bowl over a pan of simmering water and melt. Be careful that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl. Once melted, remove from the heat and stir in golden syrup and 5 tbsp of the whipping cream. Beat in the icing sugar until smooth.
8. In a separate bowl add the remaining whipping cream and whisk until it holds its shape.
9. Once the cake has cooled, unravel it and spread the whipped cream over the top and carefully roll it back up into a log.
10. Cut a thick diagonal slice from one end of the log. Left the log on to your serving plate and arrange the diagonal slice on the side of the roll with the diagonal cut against the log to make a branch.
11. Spread the chocolate icing over the log and brand (be sure not to cover the ends, you want to see the swirl) then using a fork mark the icing across the log to look like bark. Dust with some icing sugar and decorate with holly if using.