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December 25, 2020: Merry Christmas! Yuletide Log
December 26th, 2020 by Alex

Merry Christmas and welcome to kidscookdinner.com, a website my brother Max and I (Alex) started in 2015 to share our love of cooking and encourage more kids to cook.   To learn more about the website, scroll down a few posts.

To see what we cooked today, stay right here.

Today, I (Alex) am doing the cooking or at least the baking.  Max is busy finishing his college applications and mom is cooking most of the other parts of Christmas dinner, so I took on the fun job of making dessert.  Yuletide Log, or Buche Noel, is our traditional Christmas dessert, and Max’s favorite, so I decided to make it.  The batter is a traditional light sponge cake but the frosting is unusual and delicious (we use a raw egg yolk!).  The first step is to make a sponge cake.

Here are the ingredients for the cake:

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After you butter and flour a 15 inch shallow pan, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees, you need to separate the eggs and mix 1/2 cup flour with 1 teaspoon baking powder.

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Next step is  beat the 4 egg yolks with 1/2 teaspoon vanilla in a mixer on high speed for 5 minutes until they are a thick, lemon-colored consistency. Gradually add 1/2 cup sugar and beat till dissolved.

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After thoroughly cleaning the beaters, you then beat the 4 egg whites till soft peaks form.  Then add 1/3 cup sugar and beat till stiff peaks form.

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Gently fold the egg yolk mix into the egg white mix (I first mixed 1/2 cup of the beaten egg whites into the egg yolks to lighten them, and then folded the yolk mix into the whites mix). Once that’s combined, sprinkle the flour mix on top of the batter and again, gently fold in until just combined.

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Spread the batter over your buttered pan and bake for 15 minutes until just light brown and the cake springs back when you touch it.

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Loosen from tray immediately and place on a clean dishtowel sprinkled with powdered sugar.

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Gently roll up in the towel, and let cool in that position.

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When the cake is cooled unroll from the towel, and prepare to frost!

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I think the frosting is the most unique thing about this cake: it’s certainly the tastiest.  Ingredients are:

  • 12 oz of semi-sweet chocolate
  • 1 cup softened butter
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 teaspoons of cognac or rum (optional)
  • 1 egg yolk.

Melt the chocolate and once cooled, cream in the softened butter. Then add the vanilla and, if you choose (and the frosting is not too liquid), add the cognac or rum.  Finally, mix in the raw egg yolk.  I didn’t add the cognac because the frosting seemed liquid enough and I didn’t want to thin it out too much. If you are worried about the raw egg yolk, you can leave it out; the frosting just won’t be as rich or glossy, but it will still taste good.

Then you spread 1/3 of the frosting on the cake and roll it up.

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Then you frost the outside (and the ends).

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The final step is to take the back of a fork and run lines down the frosting (to make it look like bark).  Then into the fridge the roll goes so the frosting can harden.

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Just before serving, I like to decorate it with holiday figures.  Although the plastic deer on top is out of proportion, it’s an important holiday feature (we have so many deer around our house that we like to include them (symbolically) in our Christmas celebration.)

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(Here’s our friendly fawn, about 4 feet away from our house this morning, considering whether or not to eat our holly bush…seriously, that can’t taste good!)

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Finally, in case you’re wondering, here’s the rest of the holiday feast prepared by mom: roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roasted Brussel sprouts and English peas. Merry, Merry Christmas!

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