Bûche de Noël

"Bûche de Noël ("Yule log") is a traditional dessert served during the Christmas holidays in France, Belgium, Quebec, Lebanon and several other christian-populated francophone countries. As the name indicates, the cake is generally prepared, presented, and garnished so as to look like a log ready for the fire. The traditional bûche is made from a Génoise or other sponge cake, generally baked in a large, shallow jelly roll pan, frosted, rolled to form a cylinder, and frosted again on the outside. The most common combination is a basic yellow sponge cake, frosted and filled with chocolate buttercream, however, many variations on the traditional recipe exist, possibly including chocolate cakes, ganache and espresso or otherwise-flavored frostings and fillings. Bûches are often served with a portion of one end of the cake cut off and set on top of the cake to resemble a chopped off branch, and bark-like texture is often produced in the buttercream for further realism. These cakes are often decorated with powdered sugar to resemble snow, tree branches, fresh berries, and mushrooms made of meringue." -wikipedia

It's December! and Christmas is only 17 days away =) It's a time where we remind ourselves how Jesus came onto Earth to fulfil his mission. Christmas is so overly commercialised now we often forget the real meaning behind Christmas.

Many desserts/pastries are often associated with Christmas, among those are decorated sugar cookies and of course, the log cake.

I've been attempting to perfect my swiss rolls yet, they only came out un-cracked twice out of the 5-6 times =X This time, I was surprised to see that my swiss roll actually didn't crack! (even though i thought it did)

This time i used the pear swiss roll recipe from aunty yochana =)

all rolled up!

anti-clockwise from bottom left: covered in chocolate frosting; ends decorated with piped buttercream; sprinkled with snow powder; decorated with ornaments

i used 'snow powder' to dust the log cake, giving it a snowy feeling. I was told that icing sugar don't work too well was it may dissolve in the chocolate frosting. Snow powder doesn't and will not and just tastes sweet.

A bonus in doing a log cake is, you get additional flavours from the frosting, you don't have to worry if your swiss roll cracks (you're gonna cover them up with frosting anyway) and you can all decorate the swiss roll together as a family which would be a fun activity =)

happy holidays!