Convince me there’s a better cake for Christmas Visits than Yule Log 🌲 I remember Mrs Daly teaching us how to make this in a Christmas baking club when I was about 11 or 12. And I still use her recipe. Baking club was the only thing I didn’t mind staying on after school for!!
Grab:
4 large eggs
100 g (4 oz) caster sugar
65 g (2½ oz) self-raising flour
40 g (1½ oz) cocoa powder
For the filling
250g unsalted butter (room temperature)
230g icing sugar
30g cocoa powder
How to?
1. Pre-heat the oven to 170oC. Grease a 13 × 9” swiss roll tin and line with baking parchment.
2. Whisk the eggs & sugar until the mixture is light and frothy (like milkshake). Sift the flour & cocoa into the mixture, carefully folding them in at the same time. Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and gently spreads evenly into the corners.
3. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 10 minutes or until the sponge begins to shrink from the edges of the tin. While the cake is cooking, place a piece of baking parchment a little bigger than the size of the tin on to a work surface and sprinkle it with cocoa powder.
4. Invert the cake on to the coated parchment. Peel off the parchment. Make a score mark 1inch from one shorter edge, being careful not to cut right through. Roll up the cake firmly from the cut end, with the parchment inside, and leave to cool.
5. For the buttercream add the butter, icing sugar & cocoa powder into the bowl of a mixer and mix on high until light and fluffy
6. Carefully unroll the cooled cake. Remove the parchment, spread with buttercream and re-roll
7. 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.
8. Use a palette knife to spread on the icing and create rough bark texture with a fork.
9. Dust with icing sugar and garnish with fresh holly or a little robin to serve.
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