To kick start my resolutions, I made a Buche de Noel to celebrate the new year. Although I like to bake the traditional Christmas food - mince pies, Christmas pudding and cake - I not a big fan of heavy fruit cakes and food, so being able to try new recipes that are just as festival seems like a good idea for the new year so that I have a large selection come next Christmas. Also the fact that its a French classic helps as well.
I used a recipe that I found in a magazine but Rachel Khoo - who I have both of her cook books now thanks to my mum at Christmas - also has a link to her recipe from her Evening Standard Column on her blog.
It's surprising how very few ingredients can create so a lovely dessert. The sponge it self is just eggs, sugar, chocolate and cocoa powder. Mine didn't turn look great once it was baked - not that I knew what it should look like - but buttercream can cover a multitude of mistakes.
Due to the fact I have an intolerance to diary, I didn't use cream for the filling, I used buttercream, but still folded through the raspberries. I had raspberries that had been frozen and then thawed. This added a lot of moisture to the buttercream so the filling was a bit runny but it seemed OK once I popped it into the freeze for a short time to firm up. Definitely in lovely with the buttercream using melted chocolate instead of cocoa powder - how have I never tried it like this before. I will definitely be trying this buttercream on cupcakes.
Presentation wise it needs work but it will definitely be a recipe I will be trying again and perfecting. I'm tempted to give a mint version a go, potentially with crushed candy canes folded through the filling (yes I still have lots of candy canes left from Christmas).
xxx
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