This week I made a festivetastic Yule bake which was the final
part of the Thank St Andrews Its Christmas Day trilogy. We were invited to our
good friends Paul and Fiona’s for a Christmas jumper party this past weekend
and months ago they asked if I could bring a bake to add to the buffet. As many
of the guests are blog readers and previous eaters of my bakes the pressure was
on to impress!
Every year since I can remember we have had a Marks and
Spenser’s Yule log in my family home over Christmas so I thought it was about
time I tried to make my fave festive treat. In order to make something to wow
our friends I chose a Mary Berry classic recipe from the BBC website.
Ingredients
For the chocolate sponge
- 4 large free-range eggs (definitely
make sure you use large eggs, I never thought this made any difference but
as this sponge recipe has no fat or other liquid you really need all the
egg you can get!)
- 100g/3½oz caster sugar
- 65g/2½oz self-raising flour
- 40g/1½oz cocoa powder
For the chocolate ganache topping
- 300ml/½ pint double cream
- 300g/10½oz dark chocolate (around
35-40% cocoa solids), broken into small pieces (I did my usual and
mixed half milk chocolate and half dark chocolate)
For the cream filling
- 300ml/½ pint double cream, whipped
To decorate
- icing sugar, for dusting
- a toy robin or sprig of holly (I couldn’t find an obliging robin so I found a little Merry Christmas tree decoration to decorate the log)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Lightly grease a 33x23cm/13x9in Swiss roll tin, and line with non-stick paper or baking parchment, pushing it into the corners.
- For the sponge, in a large bowl whisk the eggs and sugar using an electric hand whisk until the mixture is pale in colour, light and frothy. Sift the flour and cocoa powder into the bowl and carefully cut and fold together, using a spatula, until all the cocoa and flour are incorporated into the egg mixture, be careful not to beat any of the air out of the mixture. (This took quite a while to mix in all the flour and cocoa and I wasn’t sure it was going to work but if you persevere it comes together after a few minutes of gently folding it in).
- Pour the mixture into the lined tin and spread evenly out into the corners. Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for 8–10 minutes, or until well risen and firm to the touch (it really is quite a firm sponge because it is so thin) and the sides are shrinking away from the edge of the tin.
- Place a piece of baking parchment bigger than the Swiss roll tin on the work surface. Dust with icing sugar generously. Carefully invert the cake onto the paper and remove the bottom lining piece of paper.
- Cut a score mark 2.5cm/1in in along one of the longer edges. Starting with this edge, begin to tightly roll up the sponge using the paper. Roll with the paper inside and sit the roll on top of its outside edge to cool completely (make sure you roll the sponge as soon as you get it out of the tin...read more about this later!)
- While the cake is cooling, make the ganache topping. Heat the cream in a pan, just so as you can keep your finger in it. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until it is melted. Cool to room temperature, then put into the fridge to firm up (this icing needs to be very thick for piping).
- Uncurl the cold Swiss roll and remove the paper. Spread the whipped cream on top, and re-roll tightly. Cut a quarter of the cake off from the end on the diagonal. Transfer the large piece of cake to a serving plate and angle the cut end in to the middle of the large cake to make a branch.
- Put the chocolate icing into a
piping bag fitted with a star nozzle. Pipe long thick lines along the
cake, covering the cake completely so it looks like the bark of a tree.
Cover each end with icing or, if you wish to see the cream, leave un-iced.
Alternatively, just use a palette knife to spread on the icing and create
rough bark texture with a fork. The ganache is runny enough to just
spread on with a palette knife which I find much less fiddly than using a
piping bag.
- Dust
with icing sugar and garnish with fresh holly or a little robin to serve.
Well readers I admit that I had to make this recipe twice...because
the first one was a DISASTER (said in Craig Revel Horwood’s famous Strictly Come Dancing voice!!). The
first sponge batter felt a bit stiff when it was in the bowl and when it came
to rolling it up it just broke up into 4 or 5 large pieces. I think it happened
for a couple of reasons, firstly I used medium eggs and they really do need to
be large, I think my scales were a little bit off so I put in a bit too much
flour and I also left the sponge to cool for a few minutes before I tried to
roll it up which really didn't help.
All in all it was probably one of the biggest disasters I have had
in the baking challenge to date which is saying something after 49 weeks. I
will admit I did start to panic slightly, I felt like Mary B had let me down, we
were due to leave for the party in just over 2 hours and I didn’t have enough
ingredients to start again. Eeeekkkk!! Anyway, after a flying visit to the
supermarket I was back in business and the second try turned out wonderfully
rich, tasty and horribly calorific. I rolled the sponge and left it to cool
while we popped out for our Christmas tree, creamed and iced it ready to dash
off to the party where it went down a storm. Everyone, including Paul and Fiona’s
one year old son Harrison and their sausage dog Sizzle loved it.
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| Claire, Fi, Sizzle, Lotte and Lotte's incredible light-up jumper |
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| Harrison and James |
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| Paul looks a bit angry at his Yule Log and the other Paul forgot to wear a Christmas jumper, but at least doesn't seem annoyed at the Log!! |
I can’t say that that the sponge was much of a spiral inside, it was more cream and dripping chocolate ganache but people wolfed it down regardless. Other than that the second attempt came together well and after it was polished off we all proceeded to have a jolly afternoon of catching up in our Christmas jumpers.
I was really pleased that everyone liked the log but I was
also glad that I made it a second time to prove that my hero Marry Berry hadn’t
actually let me down after all. Phew! The Yule Log finishes off the TSAIC
trilogy and was a delicious way to end to this extended celebration of my favourite
holiday of the year.
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| The log before it was devoured! |
Happy festive baking,
Linds xx
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