Hi everyone! Welcome to Dyann Bakes. I am Dyann and on today's holiday episode, we are going to make the very traditional French cake Bûche de Noël. You may also know it as a Yule Log. And the legend behind this cake is that, in the era of Napoleon the government did not allow the French people to keep their chimney flues open, because they thought everyone will get sick.
So they had to not make fires, not used their logs and they have lots of traditions that were around the hearth. And so some very smart French baker said. They can't used their real log so, how about make a log out of cake and thus the Yule Log was born.
So let me tell you a little bit about it. it is truly a roll cake. A rolled cake that we are going to make a sponge cake it's called Génoise and then we are going to fill it with something really yummy like butter cream or ganache, roll it and then ice it on the outside and the way that we marking things it really looks like a log.
So let's get started on the Génoise. We are going to make a chocolate Génoise, because I am going to fill it with coffee butter cream, it's really good. So here I have eggs and egg yolks, granulated sugar, and all the dry ingredients. What's in here is cake flour and you really should use cake flour. It's a finer flour. So it's going to make up a more pliable cake and that's really important because like I said we are going to roll it.
I have coco powder and just a touch of baking soda. I am going to take the eggs and the sugar. Mix them just till they are combined and then I am going to put them on the stove, and heat them until they are lukewarm and you'll see when I bring them back to the mixer and mix them the volume I get is great, because heating those eggs helps increase that volume. Here are the eggs, whole eggs and egg yolks, put that in and granulated sugar that I am going to add in stream. I am going to mix it just till it's combine. And now take it off the mixer, ooh let go. And with a whisk, I am going to heat this over some warm water until this mixture becomes lukewarm.
Okay so our egg and sugar mixture has come off the water bath I was whisking it the whole time. And it's lukewarm and heating the eggs really helps increase the volume, you'll see. Because now, we are going to whip this for about three to five minutes and you'll see it turns into this beautiful pale yellow, fluffy mixture, and the French term for that is Génoise. We are talking about French today.
So let's mix this for about 3-5 minutes and I'll see you then. Our egg sugar mixture is done whipping, and you can see here. It's thick and this just see how it falls that's called ribboning. If you ever seen a recipe dough, it says until it forms ribbons. So that's what you want, beautiful yellow color, okay. Really sticky it's kind of like marshmallow. So I am going to try and be clean.
Okay now to do this we are going to fold in all the dry ingredients. Just want to clean up the side on this bowl and I am going to do it in a couple of additions. Just to make it easier. Now it does deflate, but you don't want to stir it too much because the whole point is all that whipping is what brings air into your cake. There is no leavening agent in this cake, what you get it from, is the airiness I am putting to the eggs.
So make sure you scrape the bottom, and if you have the ability to sift your dry ingredients I highly recommend it, coco specially is known for having lumps. And they don't break up they don't break up when you beat them. So then you end up having cake that has this coco lumps in it. So a little more.
Okay now once this is finished it's going to go into a prepared pan and it's a flat sheet pan, but it has a lip on it. And it's also called the jelly-roll pan because what we were making some people know this cake as a jelly-roll cake. The pan has been buttered and then parchment paper has been put on top of it. And then the parchment paper has been buttered. You can use sprays and things; I don't recommend it because the butter just even helps with the flavor. This is a very clean cake, but when you bake with those sprays sometimes they end up smelling funny. Now anyway end of speech.
Okay so oops, so it still had a little on the bottom, make sure I get that. Okay get this out of the way. Here is the pan like I mentioned, greased on the parchment on the jelly-roll pan and I am going to pour this on to the sheet pan oops, real coco stuff from the side.
Okay look pretty. It's still stay nice and light. So I am glad to see that, scrape the bottom of this bowl. This is actually a yummy batter too, and anybody wants to lick the beater, it's a good one. And here I have an offset spatula, this is a large one, and you can use a small one, you can use a spoon, whatever it is that you have, that will just move things around. So you can get -- don't forget the corners. You don't want to be too thin in some places because then if it gets too thin it will get dry and it won't roll well.
Now in this cake it's kind of okay if when you roll it, it doesn't look so pretty on the outside if you have cracks and things, because we are going to be putting icing on it or some sort of covering. And also it gives; the lumps will give it a character, just keep moving it around to the end of the corner.
I one time made this and when I folded the ends, I folded the dry ingredients into the eggs I took out all the air, and I ended up with a sheet cake that was an eighth of an inch thick. It tasted delicious; it was like this flat dense browny butter. It wasn't what I needed. So I went back to following the directions to the letter. Okay, take a little bit off of my finger. It looks pretty even. Give it a little shake, don't drop it though, then we have done that to get air bubbles out, we don't want to get rid of air bubbles, you want air. This looks a little tall here.
So now this is going to go into a 400 degree oven and it's going to bake for only 10-12 minutes and you must not over bake it because then again, it's going to be pliable, you are not going to be able to roll it, and we are not going to be able to make our Bûche de Noël. So see it about 10-12 minutes.
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