My yule log consisted of:
Chocolate roulade (cake)
Raspberry buttercream (see link above)
Chocolate ganache glaze
Meringue Mushrooms
First order of business is to make your cake.
Chocolate Roulade:
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder (cocoa powder sometimes has gluten...a good way to know for sure is to use pure cocoa which is apparently always gluten free)
1/4 cup all purpose flour (I used better batter, a gluten free alternative flour)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a jellyroll pan with parchment paper.
Beat egg yolks in a standing mixer with whisk attachment for around 5 minutes or until pale yellow. Transfer to large bowl (really large, you'll have to fold in the rest of the ingredients later). Clean out the mixer bowl and whisk attachment to use again.
With your clean mixer, beat egg whites on medium for around 2 minutes, until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high and gradually add sugar. Keep whipping until stiff peaks form. What do stiff peaks look like? This:
Then, add the egg white mixture to the egg yolk mixture (add the whites in two batches).
Carefully fold the mixture with a spatula. This me folding!
When most of the white streaks are gone, sift in the cocoa and flour. As someone who usually skips the sifting, DON'T!! If you don't, it will be too heavy and the batter will collapse. Then the cake won't roll as easily later on. If you don't have a sifter, you can use a fine mesh strainer. I just prefer using a strainer, so I never bother with the traditional sifter.
Yes, this particular fine mesh strainer is actually meant for your shower drain. Make fun of me all you want BUT - it is small enough to give you more control over what you're sifting, that convenient rims allows you to place over a cup if you're dealing with something that needs to be strained and it was probably much cheaper than if it were specifically meant for the kitchen. Works great.
Once all the ingredients are combined, pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth top with an offset spatula.
Cook for 9-10 minutes. You'll know it is done when you press the cake with your finger and it will spring back up. Turn the cake onto a wire rack and peel parchment paper off.
Let the cake cool completely. Now is a good time to make your ganache, since you'll have to let that sit for a little bit before you cake frost the whole thing. The ganache is really simple, just melt together:
12 ounces of bittersweet chocolate (I use 60%...you'll know what that means when you're shopping and all the chocolates have percentages)
1 and 2/3 cup of heavy cream
You can also use a little alcohol - grand marnier, cognac, brandy...whatever you please. I used a dab of brandy.
Make sure that you're melting this together in a double boiler (do NOT just put a saucepan over the burner with chocolate) and stirring constantly. When that is done, set aside and let cool until a frosting like consistency (when it is first done, it will be pretty liquidy). Don't let overcool since it is a pain to reheat.
Now, make your buttercream while that is cooling. See above link for buttercream recipe. You don't have to make it raspberry, you can do whatever you'd like!
Now, the fun part! Spread the buttercream over the cooled cake set over aluminum foil. I probably used a little too much buttercream, but oh well.
With the help of the foil, roll the cake (in the direction so that the cake will be as long as possible, not as fat as possible...so, roll in the long side of the cake). It was actually pretty easy. The spongy cake didn't crack at all!
Cut off the ends of the cake - for two reasons. One, because they probably don't look pretty and two, to make your branches! I cut mine at a slant to look more realistic. Stick the "branches" on the "tree". Ugly side facing the log. I had enough frosting squish out of the branches so that I didn't need to use additional frosting as glue, but that would work if you're having trouble. Mine stuck on no problem.
Assuming your ganache is cool enough so that it won't run off the sides of the cake, glaze the whole thing. If you'd like (and of course I did), you can run a decorating comb over the whole thing for striations. Makes it look more like bark.
You can sprinkle (using a sifter) some confectioners sugar over the whole thing to look like snow. Or, you could use cocoa shavings, cocoa powder...anything you'd like. Also, I made meringue mushrooms. I made them purely for decoration until I realized they were actually pretty tasty!
Ingredients:
2 large egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (which is gluten free, hooray!)
1/2 cup superfine sugar (aka caster sugar...can also be achieved by putting regular white sugar in a food processor for 30 seconds)
Melted chocolate (any kind, I used ganache)
In electric mixer with whisk attachment, beat egg whites until they just start to get foamy. Add cream of tartar and continue to beat at medium speed until soft peaks. Increase speed to high, and add sugar gradually until eggs are stiff and glossy. Transfer to pastry bag, and pipe the caps and stems separately onto a jellyroll pan covered in parchment paper. It would be helpful to have a picture here, but of course I forgot to take one. But just visualize what the caps and stems would look like and you should be good to go. Bake them at 200 degrees for around an hour. Dip the caps in melted chocolate and then stick the stem on the bottom. Sift cocoa powder over the mushrooms if you wish and let them harden in the fridge.
They weren't perfect, but not bad for my first meringue mushroom attempt. Line them up on and around the cake, and you're good to go! A very appropriate dessert for Christmas dinner. Some pictures below of the whole cake as well as some slices.
We couldn't find a plate big enough, so it hung over both sides :-)
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