Double Chocolate Yule Log - A Success

Christmas is coming soon! What are your Christmas plans? Have you thought of making a Yule log for this Christmas? Remember my last year's Yule log. Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong. The ganache was hard as chocolate and the génoise cracked while I was rolling it. Well it is not happening this year! Like in science, you analyze carefully what went wrong and hope that all goes well the second time. It would be a boring post if I follow my last year's recipe. This year, I'm making a whole new one. I wrote down on paper all possible flavors of frosting, génoise and filling. The goal is to find the best matching flavors and also, the structure should be esthetically eye-catching.

Here is what I came up with. I decided this year to make a chocolate génoise with a vanilla cream filling. Instead of making a chocolate ganache, I chose to make a chocolate frosting. Now that I have all the recipes written down, it is the time to shop at my local supermarket and get all the missing ingredients. While going through the list of necessary ingredients carefully, I noticed that I didn't need to buy any chocolate pellets. All I had to buy is only one carton of whipping cream. As for the rest of the ingredients such as icing sugar and cocoa powder, I have it already in my pantry. That's a money saver! 

You can't believe how proud I was of the finished product when I made it last Sunday. Compared to last year, this is much better. The génoise rolled so perfectly without any cracks and the frosting was smooth, creamy and heavenly. I asked my brother to bring his friends to test out the Yule log and they all went for seconds. I can tell you that my bro never goes for seconds when it comes to desserts. I still had half of the Yule log left so I share the rest at work with whoever that hasn't left for the holidays. I'm glad that everyone enjoyed it, some even invites me to make another Yule log for the Christmas lunch at work last Tuesday. They were complaining that they didn't eat enough to satisfy their sweet tooth. 

Since I had some chocolate frosting and half of carton of whipping cream left in the fridge, I made a second Yule log without any problems. At the Christmas party, when I took out the Yule log, my friends, technicians and supervisor can't believe that the Yule log is homemade and seems like store-bought. Unfortunately, I had to forbid them from getting seconds, even a few of them were nagging me for seconds while I was cutting the Yule log and distributing to people who haven't tried it yet. In total, I shared it to about 20 people including my technicians and my supervisor. Well for the naggers, they scrapped every possible bits of chocolate frosting remaining on the parchment paper. 

If you want to make a Yule log successfully this Christmas, I have written all steps as clear as possible and took a picture of every steps. Hopefully, you don't end up like my last year's attempt. One important key point to remember, once the génoise is ready, immediately roll it once taken out of the oven. Good luck!

Makes 1 Yule log
Génoise adapted from Allrecipes

Preparation Time: 45 mins (génoise) + 10 mins (filling) + 10 mins (frosting)

Baking Time: 12 mins (génoise)
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

Chocolate Génoise

5 eggs, separated
1 cup white sugar, divided

1/2 cup cake flour ( or 7:1 all-purpose flour : cornstarch)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Vanilla Cream Filling

1 cup whipping cream

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp icing sugar

Creamy Chocolate Frosting

2/3 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups icing sugar

1/3 cup milk

Procedure

1. Oil a 15'' x 10'' x 1'' baking pan and line it with wax paper. Grease with butter and coat with flour.

2. In a large bowl, place egg whites, stand for 30 mins at room temperature.

3. In another large bowl, beat egg yolks until light and fluffy. Gradually whisk in 1/2 cup sugar until thick and pale.

4. In a small bowl, combine and sift flour, cocoa, and salt.

5. Gradually whisk in the dry ingredients into egg yolk mixture until blended. Set aside.

6. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until it starts to foam. Add in cream of tartar and gradually add 1/2 cup sugar. Beat until stiff peaks. As a test, the egg whites should not fall if you invert the bowl.

7. Incorporate 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. 

8. Fold in the remaining egg whites, 1/3 of egg whites at a time until incorporated. 

9. Preheat oven to 350F.

10. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 12 mins or until it springs back when gently pressed.

11. Meanwhile, prepare a parchment paper and dust with icing sugar.

12. Invert cake to prepared parchment paper, remove wax paper and immediately roll up the cake with the parchment paper, starting from the short side, while it is still hot and pliable. Let it cool.

13. Prepare vanilla cream filling. 

14. In a large bowl, beat cream until it starts to thick. Add in vanilla and icing sugar. Beat until soft peaks.

15. Unroll cooled cake and spread filling with a spatula spreader. Roll it up again. Set aside. Notice that the cake has no cracks.

16. Prepare the creamy chocolate frosting.

17. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and cocoa powder until creamy.

18. Add in milk and 1/2 cup of icing sugar. Beat until incorporated. 

19. Continue adding 1/2 cup of icing sugar until it reaches a frosting consistency.

20. Make a diagonal slice at both ends of the cake. Place it anywhere on the cake.

21. Frost cake with a spatula. Draw lines to resemble like a tree bark. Use a sieve and sprinkle with icing sugar for a snowy effect.

Et voilà! Not too difficult, right? Let me know how it turns out.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!