Buche de Noel
A chocolate genoise rolled around coffee buttercream and coated in ganache, forked into bark and dusted with snow. It looks like a winter log because it is one, and it slices like the tender cake it really is.
The whole recipe in 60 seconds
Buche de Noel, in 5 ideas
- The sponge is a genoise, and the ribbon stage is everything. Eggs and sugar whisked warm until they fall in thick ribbons are what make the sheet light enough to roll without cracking.
- Roll it warm, fill it later. Rolling the empty sponge in a cocoa-dusted towel as it cools teaches it the shape, so the final roll is calm instead of a wrestling match.
- Coffee buttercream is the classic filling for a reason. Its bitterness keeps the chocolate sponge and sweet ganache in balance.
- The diagonal cut is not decoration, it is carpentry. One angled slice reattached to the side turns a plain roll into a branched log.
- Fork tines make the bark. Long, slightly wavy strokes through soft ganache, plus a spiral on the cut ends, sell the whole illusion.
What you need
Ingredients
- 4 eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder, plus more for dusting
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, soft
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp strong coffee, cooled
- 6 oz dark chocolate, chopped
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- Powdered sugar, for snow
How to make it
Method
Heat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a 10 by 15 inch jelly roll pan with parchment and grease the paper. Whisk the eggs and sugar in a bowl set over simmering water until warm and pale, then beat off the heat for 5 to 7 minutes, until the mixture falls in thick ribbons. Fold in the vanilla, then sift in the flour, cocoa and salt and fold gently with a spatula, keeping as much air as possible.
Spread the batter evenly in the pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the top springs back when pressed. Lay a clean towel on the counter and dust it generously with cocoa. Turn the hot sponge out onto the towel, peel off the parchment, and roll the sponge up in the towel from a short side. Cool completely in the roll.
Make the buttercream: beat the soft butter until fluffy, add the powdered sugar gradually, then the coffee and a pinch of salt, and beat until smooth and spreadable. It should taste like a good coffee candy.
Unroll the cooled sponge gently. Spread the buttercream over it in an even layer, leaving a 1 inch border at the far short end. Re-roll tightly without the towel, wrap in plastic, and chill for 30 minutes to set the spiral.
Make the ganache: pour the cream, heated to steaming, over the chopped chocolate, rest 2 minutes, then stir from the center until glossy. Cool until it spreads like peanut butter. Cut a 2 inch slice off one end of the roll at a sharp diagonal and attach it to the side of the log with ganache to form a branch.
Coat the whole log with ganache, leaving the cut ends bare so the spiral shows. Drag a fork lengthwise through the ganache in long wavy lines for bark, and swirl a spiral on the exposed ends. Chill at least 30 minutes.
Dust with powdered sugar snow just before serving, and add meringue mushrooms if you have them. Slice with a hot, dry knife for clean spirals.
If the sponge cracks a little as you roll, do not panic: ganache covers every crack, and the finished log actually looks more like real bark for it.