There are many traditional recipes to holiday foods. I have talked about some of them in other posts, such as this one on Stollen and this one on cookies. A Yule log or Bûche De Noël is a common European holiday dessert.

The recipe I used for this was from Old Fashioned Home Baking. I have talked about this book before. Since I made the recipe exactly as it was called for in the book, I won’t go into the full recipe here. There are many options for this cake. Many are made with a chocolate sponge cake.

The recipe is a typical sponge cake. You mix egg yolk and sherry until it is thick and light yellow, then blend in some of the sugar. The dry ingredients are mixed together. Egg whites are whipped with cream of tartar and then sugar is added slowly. The yolk mixture and white mixture are gently combined then the flour mix is added.

Use a sheet pan with a lip of the size specified in the recipe to bake your yule log. The recipe says to spread the dough on a well greased and floured pan. I did and was able to remove the cake with only a little difficulty. I will use parchment paper next time to make the process easier. It only bakes for 12 – 15 minutes.

Rolling the Yule Log

The cake must be still warm when you roll it, so it is important to be ready when the cake is done baking. Dust a thin towel with powdered sugar. Loosen the cake in the pan as soon as it comes out of the oven. Turn the cake onto the towel and roll from the short end. The towel helps to keep the cake from sticking to itself and the powdered sugar keeps the cake from sticking to the towel.

You then want to put the rolled cake on a rack and let it cool completely.

Once the cake is cool, carefully unroll the cake. Spread your filling on the cake and roll it back up. This filling is whipping cream, coffee and powdered sugar. Try to keep an inch or so from the edges as the filling will squeeze out as you roll.

Put the cake on a serving platter. Slice off a piece and move it to the side to look like a cut branch. This helps to convey the idea of the yule log.

Frost the top and sides. The filling can make frosting the ends of the roll difficult. but you can frost them if you wish. This recipe used a dark chocolate frosting. Next time I will probably make just a bit more frosting and also make it a little softer so it is easier to spread. Use a fork or other utensil to make the frosting look like bark.

You want to store the cake in the fridge as the whipped filling will not do well in a warm room. Enjoy!