Buche de Noel part two

[louiselux]

Ta da! Thanks for all the advice and recipes!





The sadness of only having a hand whisk shines through in this picture, I think.


There must be a better way to make a ganache, for god's sake. Processing chocolate and pouring in boiling cream is MESSY. It turned out wonderfuly smooth and rich though.


The cake base just out of the oven. It's flourless, made with six eggs, cocoa and sugar. I cooked it for 20 minutes


The cake base shrinks down quite a bit, but I still ended up shaving a small layer off as I was worried it was going to be too thick to roll.


Base covered in about 230g whipped cream. The cream has 1/4 tsp of vanilla essence and 13g of caster sugar added


The cake base cracked as I rolled it but it was eventually hidden by the ganache. It was possible to squish the base quite a bit, as it was quite moist. It'd be a mistake to overcook the base and make it too dry.


Creating the branches for the sides. I used cream to weld them on.


Halfway through covering it with the ganache and I'm feeling a bit tense. Can I really pull this off? I tried to keep the coating as thin as possible, as it was very rich and I didn't want it to overpower the cake.


Time for me to make and eat a mini version from the shaved off bits and scraps of cream. Yum!


The finished cake. I have to say I'm really pleased with how it came out. The cake base was moist and not too sweet, and the filling was also not very sweet. The vanilla essence gave it a rich, ice-creamy flavour. I made the wood effect by dragging a fork through the smoothed down ganache. Then dusted with icing sugar. The holly leaves are from the garden. There wasn't time before the party to make little mushrooms, which I was quite sad about.


Nother angle


The cake about to be eaten!


The End

Comments

[rose-gialle.livejournal.com]

That looked fabulous. Really well done :-D. The photos were a great idea, too. *round of applause*

(And a rather nice vintage melamine platter, as well *bg*.)

[scribblemoose]

That looks delicious!

Maybe we ought to start the tradition of the Squeee Log....

[athena8.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, that turned out so well!! Looks really delicious, and beautiful too! Thanks for sharing the pics (and the in-progress pics too!) I love these posts! ^_____^ ♥

[kalldoro.livejournal.com]

Wow, that looked great! Good job you!!

[mendax.livejournal.com]

Way to channel your inner Ono! It turned out beautiful, and looks delicious.

[hungry-worm.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, as work intense as it looks, I bet it was worth it! Great job on this cake! *.*

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

That was a beauty of a cake! Looks yummy. mmmm

[out-of-words24.livejournal.com]

my goodness, it is gorgeous. i wish i could bake like that D=

[fedal-fangirl.livejournal.com]

~ claps & cheers ~

[moshesque.livejournal.com]

Ohh it looks so delicious. *__*

[baka-gaijin.livejournal.com]

Today is "Spam Everyone Who Is Using a Santa Hat Icon Day", sooooo....

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

P.S.
Sorry Louise for spamming in your LJ.

Actually, no. Not sorry at all. XD

[moshesque.livejournal.com]

Hee, that's awesome! Happy holidays to you too. ♥ :D

[gen50.livejournal.com]

looks terribly good....hmmmmm

[emungere.livejournal.com]

It is ttly fabulous! I want to make one! Maybe I'll do the little mushrooms today.

Also, there is an easier way to make ganache: you can just heat cream almost to the boil, turn off the heat, and stir the chocolate in (chopped obvsly) until it melts. It will look weird at first, sort of globby and stringy, but it will come together if you keep stirring.

[emungere.livejournal.com]

PS: they generally tell you to heat the cream in a bowl over a pot of simmering water and not in the pan itself. I've done it both ways though, with no problem.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I boiled my cream just in the pan and it seemed to work perfectly fine. In future, I'm using your ganache technique, it sounds so much easier. I hope yours goes well, I'm excited to see it!

[chomiji]

Ooooh, very pretty and I can almost taste it from here!

(In AB, Ono claims that brushing the outside with sugar syrup as you roll it will keep it from breaking. But with the icing on, yours is so lovely that no one can tell anyway!)

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Wow, that looks stunning. I envy people with the patience to spend that much time making something that's just going to be eaten, and disappear.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

That's amazing, wow!

[indelicateink]

Oh, I am sooo hungry for that now--it looks so rich and moist and scrumptious and gorgeous!

Nicely done!

[avierra.livejournal.com]

Yay! That looked like a really fun project, and the end result was totally worth it. I did laugh at your chocolate-covered kitchen; my projects always end up like that too. :D

It sounds delicious, but it seems such a pity to have to actually desecrate it by eating it. ;D

[quillori.livejournal.com]

That looks gorgeous - really lovely and very log-like. I'm truly impressed you did that just with a hand whisk. Thanks for taking photos of the process as well as the end result - that's a very tense moment in the middle there, where it's still a chocolate covered lump, before you transform it masterfully into a realistic log. I do like the photo of the off cuts - you captured the texture of the cake admirably (which for some reason I find hard to do in photos), which is sadly the nearest we'll come to tasting it. Lucky partygoers who go to eat it!

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Wow! SERIOUS Bûche!!!!!!!

[irisbleufic.livejournal.com]

That? Is amazing.

[despina-moon.livejournal.com]

Wow! That is cool - go you!

[sinestrated.livejournal.com]

Fabulous! :D

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

that looks wonderful and you did so wonderfully with the rolling! Uwaaahhhh!

*is impressed*

and the pictures tell a wonderfull story of adventures in baking! (and making)

Lovely absolutely lovely!

[kanzenhanzai.livejournal.com]

Oh, that looks goooood! Kanda would throw himself at your feet *g*

[kispexi2.livejournal.com]

Scrum-diddly-umptious. :-)

[enigel]

Oooh, fascinating! (And tempting...)

[animehedonist.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, and I repeat, oooh, i envy those partygoers as that looks unbelievably delicious work intensive but so worth it, I love the icing sugar on the cake at the end just makes it look that much more festive,

[baka-gaijin.livejournal.com]

Today is "Spam Everyone Who Is Using a Santa Hat Icon Day", sooooo....

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Sorry, again, Louise. Or not. XD

[toscas-kiss.livejournal.com]

That was so awesome! I love how you decorated it.
I might try that next year. I made traditional fruit cake this year because Mum has a good recipe and I love it but I'm sadly in the minority around here. But who wouldn't love Buche de Noel?

[somarem.livejournal.com]

that looks yummy. love the presentation as well and looks like people cleaned up the plate.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

That's amazing! You need a stand mixer, though.

[kaoticwords.livejournal.com]

Looks delicious and gorgeous! C:

[tochira.livejournal.com]

That looked amazing! You made the icing effects sound so simple, but you could've fooled me. When you mentioned mushrooms, I was also sad that you didn't have time to add them-- that would've been really cute. Thanks for sharing the photos; now I've got a hankering for chocolate cake. :)

[aqua-eyes.livejournal.com]

Yum!