Buche de Noel is the traditional dessert for Christmas Eve in France. Its origins date back to pagan celebrations of the winter solstice and celebration of the new year by bringing in yule logs to the fireplaces of homes. They were supposed to bring good luck for the new year.
This morning I embarked on my first buche. I won't go into the details but I got my recipe inspiration from here (cake and filling) and here (ganache and meringue). There were double boilers, candy thermometers, jelly roll pans, lots of whisking and fingers being crossed involved.
I made chocolate ganache, Italian meringue, genoise sponge cake and a chocolate cream filling. Basically, it is a cream-filled rolled cake decorated to look like it has just come in from the forest.
The meringue mushrooms turned out well but I should have made those yesterday as I had originally planned.
The log had some moss growing on it (pistachios)...
And then it snowed all over the log and mushrooms (closest we're getting to a white Christmas!)...
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