Bûche de Noël

Merry Christmas!  A week early!

I've always wanted to bake a bûche de Noël (or Yule log cake) for Christmas.  This year, I tried it for the first time, and... surprisingly... success!
But of course, I couldn't keep it a normal bûche, oh, no.  No amaretto filling for me, thanks.  I had an idea in my head that I hung onto like a pitbull: Nutella bûche.  (In case you live under a rock, Nutella is the second-most ambrosia-like substance on this planet... the first being sweetened condensed milk.)
And, luckily, I found a recipe for a bûche de Noël with Nutella from audreyscookinglab.blogspot.com.  Thank you, Audrey!

Here's the recipe - then I'll give you the play-by-play breakdown:

Bûche de Noël

Chocolate Roll Cake:
   Ingredients
      5 eggs, room temperature, separated
      2/3 cup white sugar
      2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
      3 tablespoons baking cocoa
   Directions
      Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
      Beat egg yolks until light and fluffy.  Gradually add sugar, beating until the mixture is thick and pale.  Add flour and cocoa.
      In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form.
      Fold whites into yolk-sugar-flour-cocoa mixture.
      Line a 15x10 inch jelly roll pan with parchment paper.  Butter and flour the paper.
      Spread the batter evenly into the pan.  Bake for 15 minutes or until cake springs back when touched lightly.
      Peel off parchment paper, and flip cake onto a paper towel dusted with powdered sugar.  Roll the cake and let cool.

Nutella Cream Filling:
   Ingredients
       2 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
       1/2 cup milk
       1/2 cup white sugar
       1/4 cup softened butter
       1/4 cup Nutella
       1/2 teaspoon vanilla
   Directions
       Combine flour and milk in saucepan.  Cook over low heat, stirring until thick and NOT LUMPY.  Let cool.
       In a separate bowl, cream butter, sugar, and vanilla.  Add Nutella and mix well.
       Add flour mixture.  Beat until fluffy.  Let cool in the refrigerator for at least 10 minutes.

Chocolate Ganache (Frosting):
   Ingredients
       1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
       3 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped OR 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate
           chips
    Directions
       Heat cream until just about to boil.  Pour INTO chocolate, stir until completely melted.
       Let stand for 10-15 minutes.  Then mix until it reaches a consistency of thick butter.

Assembly:
   Unroll cake and peel off paper towel.  Spread with Nutella filling and re-roll cake.
   Cut one end of the cake at about 45 degree angle, set aside. This is to create the "branch".
   Spread ganache on cake.  Attach the cut out piece on one side of the cake or on top, if you can balance it.  Spread more ganache to attach completely, and then use your spatula or fork to create bark-like effects in the ganache.
   Sprinkle with powdered sugar to create snow, and decorate as desired.

Now, to break it down:

For the cake:
Beat egg yolks until light and fluffy...

Add sugar and beat until thick and pale...

Add flour and cocoa...

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form...

Fold whites into yolk mixture, mix well, and spread evenly in your prepared pan...

Bake at 350 degrees F. for 15 minutes...

Peel off parchment paper, roll cake in a paper towel dusted with powdered sugar, and let cool.

For the filling:
Heat flour and milk in saucepan and stir until thick and smooth...

In a separate bowl, cream sugar, vanilla, and butter.  Add Nutella.

And this is where I got really lazy with taking pictures.  Follow the rest of the recipe on your own, without pictures, or with better-quality, more accurate pictures from Audrey.
Meanwhile, I'll try and explain the pictures that I did take.

This is what the rolled-up, filled bûche should look like.  Except the powdered sugar should be more even.

Lotsa bûche-with-ganache pix!

 

In order to appear "traditional," I wanted to decorate my bûche with holly, made from frosting.  Because I'm lazy, I just bought vanilla frosting from the store and colored it green and red with food coloring.  These are the colors I eventually reached:

And remember, it's always good to practice:

Then you get results like this:

Believe me, I cannot do this.  I got a LOT of help from my mom.

My mother is a fantastic decorator, and she totally rocks. :D  This is her doing:

 

I also made meringue mushrooms to go for the "traditional" bûche.  Here's how:

Meringue Mushrooms
Ingredients
   4 large egg whites
   1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
   3/4 cup sugar
   1/2 teaspoon almond extract
   2 1-oz. squares semisweet chocolate, melted
   unsweeted cocoa
Directions
   Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.  Line 2 large cookie sheets with foil.
   In a small bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form.  Sprinkle in sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat until sugar dissolved and whites stand in stiff, glossy peaks.  Beat in almond extract.
   Spoon meringue into large decorating bag with large writing tube.  Pipe meringue onto the first cookie sheet in 30 mounds, each about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and resembling a mushroom cap.  Pipe remaining meringue onto other cookie sheet - upright if stiff enough, across the foil if not - into thirty 1 1/4 inch lengths to resemble mushroom stems.
   Bake 1 hour 45 minutes.  Turn oven off, let meringues stand in oven 30 minutes longer to dry.  Cool completely on cookie sheet on wire rack.
  With tip of small knife, cut a small hole into center of underside of mushroom cap.  Place small amount of melted chocolate in hole; spread underside of cap with chocolate.  Attach stem to mushroom cap by inserting pointed end of stem into hole in underside of cap; repeat with remaining caps and stems.  Let chocolate dry for 1 hour.  Store mushrooms in tightly covered container.  Just before serving, sprinklet ops of mushrooms lightly with cocoa.  Makes 30 mushrooms.

 

Arrange the mushrooms nicely around your bûche...

 

And sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Finished bûche:

I was afraid that it wasn't going to turn out well, since I thought the filling was rather lumpy and the end of the cake that I taste-tested was rather dry, but it turned out AWESOME.  The Nutella definitely helped.

Just a word of warning: powdered sugar gets EVERYWHERE.

 And as you can probably guess, 30 mushrooms is more than enough to decorate... so treat yourself to one of these cuties!

Merry Christmas!