DON’T LET COMPLEX HOLIDAY DESSERTS SCARE YOU AWAY
Desserts like Buche de Noel don’t need to be so intimidating
Perhaps the best thing about living in the future here in 2018 America is all of our madeup combination words. Just in the realm of baking, we’ve conjured the terms procrastibaking, holibaking and distractibaking. Since we, too, love to give things ridiculous names, we thought we’d add one more to the culinary lexicon: Intimibaking.
Intimibaking is the feat of baking something that seems absolutely impossible, something that should probably be left to the pros. Think soufflés, croquembouche and Baked Alaska. But maybe you’re feeling ambitious. Maybe you’re on top of the world and no meringue is going to stop you. Maybe you’re thoroughly defeated and you need to tackle cream puffs to get your groove back. Enter the intimibake.
The Buche de Noel (or yule log; no need for the title to be intimidating, too) might be the perfect seasonal intimibake. The yule log is a traditional European dessert, a cakey representation of an actual log that you’d put on a fire to burn for warmth. Burning that last big log was a way of saying goodbye to winter, and then, somewhere down the line, the yule log got turned into a cake and became associated with Christmas. As these things do.
With everything that goes into creating the yule log, it definitely fits the intimibake bill. The rolling of the cake, the glossy ganache, the little cake that literally stands up on top of the main cake — it seems like there’s much that could go wrong.
“It’s one of these things where you can make it more complicated if you want to, or keep it simple,” said Jodi Polson, pastry chef at Beast + Bottle and Coperta.
“Simple” is relative. Regardless of how elaborately you decorate your yule log, there are still a lot of steps to get it made, filled, rolled and frosted. Polson shared her recipe and walked us through
it, and while it definitely takes some time and effort, it’s doable. (If you don’t want to spend the time and effort because, you know, it’s December, you can order one of Polson’s from Coperta for $69.)
To break it up, you can make the cake a day ahead, and to make it even more festive, try adding crushed candy canes to the buttercream filling. Go intimibake crazy!
Buche de Noel (Yule Log)
From Jodi Polson, pastry chef at Beast + Bottle and Coperta Serves 10-12
FOR THE CHOCOLATE SPONGE CAKE Ingredients
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup dark chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 teaspoons vanilla
6 eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon + 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup + 1/3 cup sugar
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift together the cocoa powder and allpurpose flour.Combine the chocolate, oil and vanilla and melt over a double boiler. (You can also microwave gradually at low heat.)
Using a stand mixer’s whisk attachment, whip the egg whites until frothy, then slowly pour in the first addition of sugar and salt (not all at once or it will clump); whip until stiff peaks form.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and second addition of sugar and salt until thick and pale; this should take a couple minutes. Beat the melted chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture.
Gently fold the meringue into the chocolate mixture in thirds. By the last third, it should be almost, but not completely, incorporated. Fold the dry ingredients into the chocolate mixture in thirds. Don’t overmix, as we don’t want to lose the air.
In a half sheet pan, grease the bottom, line with a sheet of parchment paper and grease paper. Spread the cake batter evenly into pan, touching it as little as possible. Bake cake 10-12 minutes until it’s springy in the middle. The rolled cake needs at least four hours in the fridge before decorating, so plan ahead! For rolling instructions, see ‘Assembly.’
FOR THE SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM Ingredients
4 egg whites
1 1/8 cup sugar
8 ounces butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions
Combine the egg whites and sugar over a double boiler and cook, whisking occasionally until the sugar has completely dissolved. This will take about 20 minutes or so. Pour the mixture into a mixer and whip until thick and cool to the touch. You want it to double in volume, about 10 minutes. Add butter a few tablespoons at a time, while still whipping, until all the butter has been incorporated. It should be fluffy and look like whipped cream.
Stir in the vanilla and mix on low to smooth out buttercream, about 5 minutes.
FOR THE CHOCOLATE GANACHE Ingredients
1 pound dark chocolate (Polson uses 72 percent; you can use chips, discs or a chopped bar)
1 pint heavy cream
Directions
Place dark chocolate in a large bowl. Heat cream over medium heat until just about boiling. Pour cream over chocolate, stirring a bit, and let sit 5 minutes. Stir the mixture with a rubber spatula until completely smooth and incorporated. Stir from the middle. It may look like it won’t come together, but it will! Use immediately if pouring, or let sit until slightly cool but spreadable.
Assembly: Allow the cake to cool for about 5 minutes before rolling. Lay a large towel on the counter. Run a knife around the edge of the cake pan so it doesn’t stick anywhere. Flip the cake out onto the towel and peel off the parchment paper.
Roll it lengthwise with towel inside the roll. Let it cool rolled up with the towel for 10 minutes.
Unroll and spread the buttercream over cake as evenly as possible. Roll it back up, using the towel as a guide. Roll the cake in parchment paper and place seam-side down in the fridge to chill, overnight or at least four hours before decorating.
To decorate, place the cake on a board or platter. Cut each end at an angle — these cut pieces will be your branches. Assemble the cut pieces like arms of a tree with one on top. You can use the leftover buttercream or ganache as glue. Cover everything with ganache using a spatula or spreader. Don’t worry about getting a perfect covering; it looks even better if you make bark-like marks with your spreader. Add some powdered sugar (snow!), sprinkles, hot-cinnamon candies (like Red Hots), gum drops or whatever you’ve got to make it look festive. Allyson Reedy is a food writer for The Denver Post. On Twitter @AllysonBTC and Instagram, AllysonEatsDen.