- Hey guys, today I'm gonna show you
how to make a classic French holiday dessert
known as a buche de noel.
It's one of my favorite holiday desserts out there
because it is so beautiful and so festive,
and of course so delicious, too.
Now, the thing to know about a buche de noel
is it is not the quickest or easiest dessert out there,
because we have to tackle the delicate sponge cake,
the rich chocolate hazelnut pastry cream,
the dainty meringue mushrooms,
those charming fondant pine cones,
and of course the chocolate bark on top.
It is one showstopper of a holiday dessert.
I'm telling you, it's completely worth the effort.
And not to worry, because I'm gonna take you
through all the prep, every step of the way.
In fact, I'm gonna show you how to prep this
starting at December 22,
so that you can manage a little bit every day
and be able to serve it stress-free on December 25.
Let me show you how to make it.
The meringue mushrooms are most traditional,
so if you only have time for one of these
I would say go with the mushrooms.
They're also a little bit easier,
I think, than the pine cones,
which can be a little bit tedious.
I've added the pine cones over the years,
but now I love them so much that I always try
to make time for at least a few of them.
Okay.
So the begin your meringue mushrooms,
here's what you're gonna do.
In a bowl of an electric mixer,
you're going to add four egg whites,
half a teaspoon of cream of tartar,
and then you're also gonna add
a quarter teaspoon of salt
and a teaspoon of vanilla.
So you're gonna whip that up on high,
just until the egg whites start to become nice and frothy
and they begin to become opaque.
At that point, you're gonna slowly add a cup of sugar.
This will help keep those egg whites
nice and light and fluffy.
At that point, you're going to transfer this
in a pastry bag fitted with a round tip.
I like to use about a half-inch size
because I think that's a really great size
to make a mushroom.
And then working with two sheet pans
that are covered in parchment paper,
you're gonna pipe out the mushrooms.
So you're gonna pipe a little round mound of egg white,
and then a little tiny, about half-inch stem.
At this stage, we're gonna take a spoon
that has been dipped in some cold water
and we're just gonna go over and just touch it
with any of the peaks.
And you'll see, that will get them to settle down.
Now, one great thing about the mushrooms
is you don't need to have a ton of skill or precision.
In fact, I think they're even better
when they're all a little bit different sizes
because let's be honest, that's how they grow in nature.
And then we're gonna dust with a little bit
of unsweetened cocoa powder.
I like to add the cocoa powder at this step
because it will actually set right into the meringues,
which will prevent it from really dusting off too much
when you go to decorate your buche de noel.
Then we're gonna place these trays in the oven
at 225 degrees Fahrenheit, for one hour.
Yeah, they do take some time.
This is why we're doing this a few days ahead,
because it does take time for that meringue
to really dry out and set.
And then you're gonna take
some melted bittersweet chocolate,
and you need a small paring knife.
And basically what we're gonna do
is carve a little hole in the bottom of each cap,
dip it in the chocolate.
And then I also like to take the stem,
one end of it, and dip that in the chocolate.
And we're gonna glue the two together, you see?
And then you have a really beautiful
little meringue mushroom.
And then you can rest this
just on your cookie sheet like that to set up,
and they do take an hour or two for that to happen.
So next up, let me show you how to make
these adorable little chocolate fondant pine cones.
They look really sophisticated and complicated,
but actually all it is is chocolate fondant
and sliced raw almonds.
Pull off a little ball of it,
about the size of a ping pong ball,
and roll it into a ball.
And then once you get your little ball,
you wanna actually flatten one side of it
and then cone up the top of it.
So you're trying to create like, a little pyramid.
And don't worry, it doesn't need to be perfect.
We're really just looking for a form.
It'll be covered by all the almonds.
Then, you want to get those sliced raw almonds
that still have the skin on it.
I think that looks really pretty
because they look even more like pine cones.
And you're just gonna take the almond
and insert it into the fondant.
And you wanna start making a row,
tilting the almond upward, going all the way around.
Then when it comes time to do the second row,
you're gonna start about an eighth of an inch up.
So you wanna leave a little bit of space
to see the brown in between the almonds.
And then you wanna start the first almond
kind of like, in between the two almonds of the first row.
You kinda wanna alternate it.
So you don't wanna have almond and almond,
you wanna stagger it because that will also
make it look more authentic.
Now, even though you have a few more rows to go,
it does get easier as you go up
because you need less almonds.
And it's pretty meditative.
It is a great project to put on the Christmas carols,
get your kids involved, get people to help you,
and bust out eight of these little pine cones.
And then with a metal spatula,
you can transfer them onto a sheet pan.
And these will stay just like this
for a few days at room temperature.
The nice thing is that that fondant
will start to dry out a bit,
and it'll make these a lot more stable
and less fragile, too.
Okay, so we've got our decorations down,
we're feeling really good.
This was the hardest part,
or probably the most tedious part of all of this.
So it's gonna go all downhill from here,
smooth sailing ahead.
(twinkling music)
So let's start by the cake.
So in order to make a cake that is actually
going to roll into the shape of a yule log,
you need to make a really spongy cake,
because they have a lot of give to them.
There are a lot of methods out there for making this cake,
but I find this is the simplest, most direct.
We're gonna be working with a half-sheet jelly roll pan,
and I'll leave you the dimensions in the description.
And what I typically do
is spray the whole thing with baking spray
and then line it with some parchment paper,
and then go over with my pastry brush
on the parchment paper, too, just for added insurance.
So we're gonna begin with a medium-sized bowl,
and you wanna put a strainer over the bowl
because we're gonna sift our ingredients.
And you're going to add half a cup
of plain all-purpose flour,
half a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder,
half a teaspoon of salt,
and a quarter teaspoon of baking soda.
You can go ahead and whisk that up
while it's being sifted, and there you go.
You'll have a really beautiful, fine powder on your hands.
So you can set that aside,
and then in the bowl of an electric mixer
you are going to add six eggs
and half a cup of sugar.
And you're gonna let this go for anywhere
from five to seven minutes,
until it triples in volume.
And you'll see, it'll create the most beautiful,
pale yellow, billowy mixture.
That's what you want.
And at that point, you're gonna add
one teaspoon of vanilla extract,
and you can beat that up.
And then you wanna have at the ready
your dried ingredients
and five tablespoons of unsalted melted butter.
And then alternating, you're going to take
a scoop of the dry ingredients
and put it in the cake, and mix it up on slow.
You don't wanna overbeat it because we don't want
all of that beautiful volume to then deflate.
And then add a little bit of the melted butter.
So you're gonna do that,
alternating the dry ingredients and the melted butter,
until everything is nicely incorporated.
Then we can take our beautiful batter,
and we're going to pour it into the center of the pan.
And this is where an offset spatula
is really worth the investment.
I find it's the best way to get a very nice,
smooth, even surface.
And then you're gonna put it in a 325 degree Fahrenheit oven
for anywhere from eight to 10 minutes.
So that's a good part about this cake,
it bakes very, very quickly.
And you don't wanna overbake
because then it'll really dry out
and will be harder to roll.
So do keep an eye on it.
And you'll know that it's done
once it's firm to the touch
and a toothpick comes out clean.
Then you wanna allow this cake to cool completely,
because we really wanna make sure
that we have the best chances of rolling it.
And it's much better when it's completely cool.
If you try to roll it when it's still warm,
it could snap on you and crack.
So you don't want that.
Then before releasing the cake,
you wanna make sure you have a few things ready.
We wanna have a damp kitchen towel,
and then you also wanna take a little bit
of unsweetened cocoa powder
and dust it over the towel.
And then you also wanna take a knife
and just run it around the cake,
because you wanna make sure
that you're gonna have a clean edge to release it
and it's not gonna get stuck to the pan.
Then you wanna line up the cake pan
to the center of the kitchen towel.
And then with one delicate motion,
you're going to flip the cake over onto the kitchen towel
and then you're gonna very gently
remove the parchment paper.
And then moving on one side,
you're going to start to roll up
the kitchen towel into the cake.
I know this sounds like a strange thing,
but basically what we're doing
is we are trying to create a mold
so this cake will stay in the shape of our yule log.
So just very gingerly go ahead and fold,
and this is why a sponge cake is so critical.
And you can kind of feel its spongy texture.
It will really give on you,
and the damp kitchen towel
will also help it become a little bit more pliable.
And then you can just tuck the ends under
and put it in your refrigerator overnight.
Okay, so one task done,
now we're gonna tackle the pastry cream.
So in a large sauce pan,
we are gonna add two cups of whole milk
and one vanilla bean that has been split down the center
and scraped at the seeds.
And you can put both in the pot with the milk.
And then you wanna allow that to get up to a simmer.
Then in a large bowl, you're gonna add four egg yolks
and a quarter cup of corn starch,
or corn flour you may know it.
And then whisk it up until everything is nice and combined
and you have a pale yellow mixture on your hands.
Then, once that milk starts to simmer
and become kind of foamy,
you want to strain it through a strainer
just to catch the pod and any of the seeds
that are too large to go through the strainer.
And you can be whisking all the while.
Then you wanna make sure that you wash out your sauce pan,
because at this stage the milk does have a tendency
of sticking kind of to the bottom.
And if you start to create pastry cream
in that environment,
the pastry cream will stick to the bottom.
So it is a critical step.
Do not get lazy and not wash out the pan.
You will not be happy.
So then you're gonna take your custard base
and put it back into your cleaned-out pan,
and then on medium high
you're just gonna whisk all the while
until it starts to bubble and boil a little bit.
And at the same time, you'll also see it
start to thicken very, very quickly.
And at this point you wanna reduce the heat to medium,
and just keep whisking very rapidly
until that pastry cream gets nice and thick.
And at that point, we are going to add
a quarter cup of chocolate hazelnut spread.
And you wanna whisk that into the warm pastry cream,
and that will turn your pastry cream
into a chocolate hazelnut pastry cream.
Then once your pastry cream is done,
you want to transfer it into a shallow bowl,
and then take some plastic wrap
and put it right on top,
smoothing out the surface and making sure
that it's really nice and tightly-wrapped.
That will prevent the pastry cream
from getting any condensation or forming a skin.
And then you wanna put this in your fridge overnight.
(gentle violin music)
Okay, that last day of prep, December 24.
Here's what you're gonna do.
It just gets easier from here on out.
You're going to take your pastry cream
that has been in the fridge
and transfer it to a large bowl.
At this point, we are going to fold in
some homemade whipped cream to lighten this mixture.
And just go ahead and fold it in
until it's nice and light and probably doubles in volume.
Then you're going to take your cake log and unroll it,
and you'll see it should just kind of
stay right like in a log form.
And it's better if you keep it in that log form,
kind of roll it back up,
because it will be easier to transfer that way.
And we wanna transfer it onto a clean dry dish towel,
also sprinkled with some cocoa powder.
And then you can kind of unfurl that log.
And then we are going to add our pastry cream.
So I like to add a little bit at a time right in the center,
leaving at least two inches on either side,
because that will really help when we go to roll it up.
Then, you're gonna work from one end
and roll up the cake log.
Then when you get to the very end,
here's a little tip for you.
You don't really wanna take that last bit of log
and flop it on top of each other,
because the pastry cream could kind of seep out.
What I think the better thing to do
is take the end of the dish towel
and pull it towards you,
and that will kind of roll the log at the same time.
And then you can keep rolling the log in the towel,
because we want to now cover our cake
and pastry cream back into a dry towel
and put this in our fridge overnight.
And what this will do is really set up that log
so that it becomes very easy to slice into
when you go serve this tomorrow.
And that's all you have to do for today.
(gentle guitar music)
Okay, it's just about showtime for our buche de noel.
This is the last and final prep.
We are going to assemble, plate, and decorate.
So to make our chocolate bark,
you're gonna need two pieces of parchment paper.
And then we're gonna take four ounces
of melted bittersweet chocolate,
which you can do in the microwave,
30 second increments until it's completely melted,
pour it into the center of your paper.
And then with an offset spatula,
just smooth it out into like, a large rectangle.
And then you're gonna put the other parchment paper on top,
smooth it out with your hand,
and then pop this in the freezer
for probably about 10 minutes or so.
We're gonna do that so that it hardens up.
Then meanwhile, we can get our buche de noel ready.
So you're gonna take your log out of the fridge,
and at this point I also like to give it
one final dust of the cocoa powder.
And then transfer the log onto the platter,
seam side down.
And then you can go get the decorations,
which is the real fun part.
So I like to take a couple of those pine cones,
put them on the corners,
and then nestle in our little meringue mushrooms.
I like to kind of pile them up
and have some pointing in and some pointing out.
It just looks so pretty that way.
Then we're gonna take our chocolate
from the parchment paper.
Now that it's nice and hard,
you can roll that up.
And as you roll it, it'll start to create
these really nice chocolate shards
that you can use to decorate the top of your buche de noel.
And I think it's great.
The more uneven and kind of jagged the better,
because that's what real bark looks like.
And then a winter log would not be complete
without a dusting of snow, right?
So then we're gonna take a little powdered sugar
and we're gonna dust it on top of the bark.
And then I also like to do, ever-so-slightly,
on top of the pine cones.
And there you have it,
one fantastic-looking holiday dessert
that is sure to impress.
It's such a beautiful dessert idea.
It does take a little work, I will not lie.
But if you start on December 22,
you cannot go wrong.
And if you don't have the time,
if you're watching this on December 24,
just grab a few friends.
This is a great project
to assign each person a part of the recipe,
and that way you could accomplish it a lot quicker.
Alright you guys, I'll see you back here next week,
when I'm gonna have a very special guest in my kitchen.
I am gonna be joined by my dad,
who's going to show me how to make
his world-famous eggnog recipe.
You don't wanna miss that.
Until then, bye.
(twinkling Christmas music)