Just about every country has a special dessert to mark the holidays. But none is as iconic as the classic French Yule log or Bûche de Noël. It’s traditionally a filled and rolled sponge cake covered with chocolate buttercream which has been scumbled (that’s Julia Child’s term) to look like tree bark and bedecked with edible decorations, such as meringue mushrooms.
Without the Bûche de Noël, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas for the French. The Bûche de Noël has its origins in the ancient Celtic tradition of celebrating the winter solstice by bringing a log of wood into the home to burn in the hearth for good luck. As large hearths disappeared to be replaced by small stoves, burning huge logs became increasingly inconvenient, so ultimately the Yule log cake symbolically took its place.
Eager this year to participate in the tradition with a Bûche de Noël of my own, I quickly realized I had only two choices. I could buy one at Williams-Sonoma, but it would set me back $90. Or I could make one from scratch. So I opted for the latter.
First I consulted my well-worn copy of The French Chef Cookbook and found Julia Child’s recipe which, she claims, is “quite easy to do.” Still it has 40 steps and takes hours. I thought I’d better get some help, so I headed to Like Home, the charming little bakery on Lindell Boulevard, down from the IKEA store in St. Louis. There Clemence Pereur, like the cool pastry chefs of France nowadays, has branched out, so to speak, to a bûche made in a mold rather than the traditional rolled version. This eliminates the most complicated part of the old-fashioned recipe and in the process boosts flavor by replacing mere sponge cake with meringue cake and using lots and lots of chocolate mousse to form the log.
I think I can safely say, without going out on a limb, that her Bûche de Noël puts others in the shade.
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Modern Bûche de Noël
This is Clemence Pereur’s recipe for the sort of Bûche de Noël you’ll find these days all over France.
¾ cup almond flour
¼ cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon flour
10 egg whites, divided
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, divided
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
2 tablespoons water
½ cup plus ½ tablespoon heavy cream
8 ounces dark chocolate
Beat 4 egg whites until firm peaks form. Gradually add ¼ cup sugar and beat until whites are stiff and glossy. Combine almond flour, powdered sugar, and flour and fold into meringue mixture. Pipe mixture onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, dissolve gelatin in water until softened. Melt chocolate in heavy cream and add gelatin mixture. Beat remaining 6 egg whites until firm peaks form. Gradually add remaining 5 tablespoons sugar and beat until stiff and glossy. Combine chocolate mixture and meringue and pour into log shaped silicone mold, filling to top. Cut almond cake to fit top of mold and place on top of mousse. Freeze for 1-2 days. Unmold, sprinkle with powdered sugar, and decorate with chocolate shards.
