la buche de Noel aux marrons

Just before Christmas, as I was revisiting my traditional chocolate buche de Noel, I mentioned wanting to try a new flavor: la buche aux marrons or chestnut yule log.
Well it turned out pretty good, Miss C. and I really enjoyed it, the men of the house cannot eat it since it is full of nuts!

To keep it fair, I also made the chocolate one. So I started with the same dough, and after baking it and covering it in simple syrup, I used 2/3 for the chocolate buche and 1/3 for the chestnut one. While they are different they followed the same principle: rolled cake with filling and covered in sugary goodness.

This Christmas Chocolate buche.
For the filling, I used some chestnut spread (sent to me by my parents, but it can also be purchased on amazon: here). I was loosely following this recipe from Sunny Delices but since it was a small scale, I used 100 g of chestnut spread, 30 g of soft butter and 60 ml of whipped heavy cream.
After rolling it, I made some Swiss meringue (just like for my lemon pie) with 2 egg whites and 3 oz of sugar (cooking it before whipping it) and finally blow torching it. It makes everything prettier!

This buche definitively goes my vision of a Champagne Christmas!
For Christmas, we kept the table setting simple:

pretty plates, a few candles (battery operated for safety!) and Champagne of course. Silly dog and tween not optional!
Happy day!