another buche de Noel

Are you ready to celebrate?

Still undecided on what dessert to choose for Christmas?

How about a traditional French dessert: buche de Noel?

It is very chocolaty and my kids just want nothing else! A few years ago , I share our buche de Noel, which I made pretty much every year...
Here for the recipe
Well while I was going through this recipe, I realized I was pretty short on explanation originally, so this time around, I took a few pics while I was making it. They are a little dark as I was making the cake late a night for a work holiday lunch.... So yes I will be making another one on Saturday morning, the younglings are speaking of mutiny otherwise!
In the morning I bake the cake and made the simple syrup. (reminder: 5 egg yolks, 2.5 oz sugar, 1 tsp vanilla;  5 egg whites, 2.5 oz sugar; 4.35 oz cake flour, pinch of salt)
In the evening I cut off the edges (they can be dry and uneven) and  covered the roulade with the simple syrup flavored with some espresso, (alcohol is good too, but this was for work, so coffee is always the answer!)

Then I made the mocha mousse ganache with heavy cream and chocolate. (reminder: 4 oz semisweet chocolate (chopped), 1/4 cup of milk,  1 tsp of instant espresso powder, 1/2 cup heavy cream) The chocolate has to be melted with some cream or milk very gently, so best to warm up the milk, then pour it over the chopped chocolate and let the warmth melt the chocolate. Very important: this need to cool down, completely before adding it to the cream  and whipping it to make the mousse! Then I "buttered" the cake with the mousse.

Next is the part where people get nervous: rolling the cake! It is moist and a little heavy, so I grabbed the paper to help me roll the cake. I could not take a pic while it was happening, but here what it looks like after. I also cut a piece off at an angle, since I do not have any platter big enough for such cake and it needs to feed 15 people (which it totally did!)

On the last turn, a large crack was made...no need to worry, this were the icing comes in, glues everything together and hides "the flaw"! I like to make my chocolate icing following the recipe on the back of the Hershey's cocoa: 1 stick of butter, 2/3 cup of cocoa, 1 tsp vanilla, 3 cups of powder sugar, 1/3 cup of heavy cream,  I ended using more cream as it was too thick to work with.

After that, all better! I usually leave the ends uncover so that the"wood" can be seen, but it was not looking perfect so I covered it all... Finally it is time to decorate with some snow (powdered sugar), some sawdust (white chocolate shavings) and of course figurines! (Miss C. has quite the supply)

I also made a no cream mini roll cake for one of my coworker, not as pretty but she was able to have some dessert!

I am thinking about breaking tradition and make 2 buches this Christmas, I am not a huge fan of chocolate cake, so may be I can still some of the cake, and use some chestnut spread to make une buche de Noel aux marrons.... I will let you know how it turns out!
Happy day!