Recipe Buche de Noel

medtran49

medtran49

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Since we'll be having our real Christmas later this week with our girls, I started on our Buche de Noel today. This thread will be a work in progress. Today, molded fondant decorations so they'll have time to dry. The pine cone halves will be put together to make 3D pine cones.

I used purchased Wilton fondant and this mold set. Cornstarch was used for dust the mold for the holly leaves and berries, and cocoa powder was used to dust the molds for the pine cones. I only used the large holly leaves and berries mold, but used all 3 sizes of the pine cone mold.

Make sure you dust the molds very well, shaking out any excess, then make sure to thoroughly fill with fondant (use a small piece of red to work into the berries, then remove excess before putting the green in), roll across it with a large wooden dowel, using a sharp knife laid flat across the mold to remove excess. Wipe the knife off often to keep edge clean. Try not to overfill too much. If there's not much overage, you can wipe most of it away with just your fingers. Starting at 1 end, gently bend the mold to start popping out your decoration. They should come out fairly easily. Oh, if fondant is sticking to your fingers, rub some of the cornstarch or cocoa powder onto your fingers.

If you want your decorations to be fairly hard, lay them out on a flat surface, place somewhere safe like a cupboard and let them air dry for a couple of days, then store in a cardboard box. Do not store in a plastic container as they will stay fairly soft.

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Tomorrow, meringue mushrooms.
 
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Meringue mushrooms

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2 large egg whites, room temprtsyitr
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
Cocoa powder
Dipping chocolate disks (dark, semisweet or milk chocolate, your choice)

Large baking sheet
parchment paper
piping bag or plastic bag
3/8 round tip (or cut a 3/8 hole in plastic bag, the tip will help with piping but is not necessary)
Small round brush (clean, food safe, unused for anything but food purposes)

Using a stand mixture will cut down on mixing time, but you can use a hand mixer, it will just take a little longer.

I added about 1/16 of a tsp of cocoa powder to the sugar and mixed so that my mushrooms wouldn't be white-white. You could omit or add a little more for a slightly darker mushroom.

Preheat oven to 200 Fahrenheit.

Using the balloon whisk attachment on a stand mixer, beat the egg whites until they just start to get foamy. Add in the cream of tartar and salt. Whip for 1 minute. Then, slowly start adding in the sugar/cocoa (if using) and beat until fairly stiff peaks form.

Place the tip (if using) in your piping bag, fold over several inches to make a collar. Either place your bag in a tall glass (which will make it easier to fill) or holding bag in your non-dominant hand, use a large spatula to fill the bag with the meringue.

On the large baking sheet covered with parchment paper, pipe mushroom caps of various sizes, 1 inch to 1-3/4 inches in diameter. They should like like very flat Hershey's kisses. With a wet finger, smooth the points down so that the caps are slightly domed. Pipe 6 caps. Then, pipe 6 stems. Bases should be about 3/4 or so inches in diameter and they should look like very tall, elongated Hershey's Kisses. You want to slightly vary the sizes so you'll have different size mushrooms. Some of the stems can be slightly curved, just don't go too far over as the mushroom won't stand up. You can ever do some double-stemmed mushrooms, just make sure 1 is shorter and both have slight curves in opposite directions. Continue making 6 each of caps and stems until all of meringue is used.

Don't worry about having too many. They make great gifts or, at least in my case, people were as interested in eating the mushrooms as they were the cake itself! You also want to have extra in case of breakage, as they are fragile.

Bake meringues for 1 hour and 30 minutes. They should feel crispy and firm on the outside and should slide easily on the parchment. Open the oven door several inches and let cool slowly.

Once completely cool, pour out a little cocoa into a small bowl. Dip the brush in the cocoa powder lightly and use it to brush the mushrooms to add more color and make them look more realistic. The brush I used is in the picture of the sponge cake below. This is an optional step, but it makes them look so real. I had one person completely fooled until I got her to touch it.

Melt the chocolate in a small glass bowl in the microwave at 15 second intervals, stirring each time with a small spoon or spatula. Don't overheat.

Using the tip of a small paring knife, make a small hole in the bottom of each mushroom cap. Using a butter knife or a small spatula, spread a small amount of chocolate on the bottom of each mushroom cap for the gills, making sure to get chocolate into the hole you made. Place the tip of each stem into the small hole. Place the mushroom cap back on the baking sheet upside down (cap side down) and let the chocolate cool and set up.

These can be made a 2-3 days ahead. Since I live in a very humid area (and meringues are GREATLY affected by humidity and they were already starting to soften slightly by the time I got around to finishing them later in the day after baking), I stored these in a plastic container filled with uncooked rice. They crisped back up quite nicely and stayed that way until they were used.
 
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Sponge ready to roll.
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Not a classic technique, but it worked well and was much easier.

Sponge cake

6 large eggs room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional, could also use lemon, orange, almond, etc as desired)
1 cup granulated sugar, 210 grams
1 cup all-purpose flour, 130 grams
1/2 tsp baking powder

17 x 12 ish jelly roll pan, mine is like 17.25 x 11.75 inches
Stand (preferably) or electric hand mixer
Large spatula for folding
Large off-set spatula for smoothing/leveling

Preheat Oven to 350˚F. Line bottom of jelly roll pan with parchment paper, spray the center of the pan lightly so parchment paper will stick and not move around.

Whisk together 1 cup flour and 1/2 tsp baking powder. Set aside.

Beat the 6 large eggs In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment for 1 minute on high speed. Add in flavoring if using and mix in. With the mixer on, gradually add 1 cup sugar and continue beating 8-10 minutes until thick and fluffy. If you are using a hand mixer, you need to increase initial beating time to 2 minutes, and second beating time as needed to reach thick and fluffy. I was too lazy to get the stand mixer out and it took nearly twice as long with the hand mixer. I'll use the stand mixer next time. You know you are done when the batter that drops from the beater/whisk will form a figure-of-8 on top of the batter in the bowl and remain for at least 10 seconds before sinking.

Sift the flour mixture into the egg mixture one third at a time. Very gently fold with a large spatula with each addition just until incorporated. Make sure you fold from top to scraping bottom to catch any pockets of flour. You are done when no streaks or pockets of flour remain. Be very gentle and do not over-mix or you will deflate the batter. Gently pour/scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth/level with a large off-set spatula.

Bake at 350˚F for 23-28 minutes in a regular oven. If you are using a convection oven, check sooner at 18-19 minutes. Top should be golden brown and cake should feel spongy when gently touched. Let cool for about 5 minutes, Run a butterknife or small spatula end around the edges of the cake. Cover with another sheet of parchment paper and flip out onto a large cake rack. Carefully peel the parchment off the bottom of the cake, replace with new sheet of parchment. Let cool for 5 minutes. Cake will steam slightly between the parchment papers, making it easier to roll. Slide parchment paper encased cake onto a large dish towel and gently roll into a log. Set aside and allow to cool completely before filling/frosting.
 
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Flavored Italian buttercreams

Equipment:
Candy thermometer
Stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment - note, you can do this with a hand mixer, but you will definitely need a helper for safety when pouring the boiling hot sugar syrup.

Espresso frosting, makes a little over 3 cups of frosting

1-1/3 cups sugar, divided
4 oz water
4 large egg whites at room temperature 30 minutes
1 Tbsp plus 2 teaspoons instant-espresso powder
3/4 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
3/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt, rounded
4 sticks (3/4 pounds) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces and softened to room temperature
Brown gel or paste food coloring for a darker bark if desired

Vanilla and Chocolate filling, makes a little over 3 cups frosting in total, I divided.

1-1/3 cups sugar, divided
4 oz water
4 large egg whites at room temperature 30 minutes
3/4 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
3/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt, rounded
4 sticks (3/4 pounds) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces and softened to room temperature
3 ounces fine-quality 60%-cacao bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled to just above room temperature (for 2 cups of chocolate and a little over 1 cup of vanilla buttercream. Add another 1 to 1-1/2 ounces of chocolate if you want all chocolate.)

Bring 7/8 cups sugar and water to a boil in a large heavy saucepan fitted with candy thermometer (make sure bottom of thermometer is not touching bottom of pan) over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved. If there are any sugar crystals on side of pan, brush down gently with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. Then, bring to a boil and let cook, without stirring, until mixture registers 235 to 242 Fahrenheit, 15 to 20 minutes.

While syrup is boiling, beat whites with espresso powder, vanilla, cream of tartar, and salt in mixer at medium speed until they just hold soft peaks. Add remaining sugar, about 1 tablespoon at a time and beat until whites just hold stiff peaks. Optional: Add in desired amount of food coloring a couple drops at a time while you are beating in the sugar.

When syrup reaches temperature, immediately start to pour syrup in a slow stream down side of bowl into whites (avoid beaters) while beating at high speed. Beat until the mixture is completely cool, 25 to 30 minutes. It is important that meringue be completely cool and at room temperature so that butter does not melt.

Then, with mixer at medium speed, add butter 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition until buttercream is smooth. (Mixture may look curdled before all butter is added but will come together at end.)

Transfer 2 cups buttercream to a small bowl and stir in chocolate.

If buttercreams are too soft to spread, chill, stirring occasionally.
 
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Putting it together. With the sponge rolled up, I cut about 1/4 of it off with a long bread knife, then filled that fourth with the vanilla filling. The remainder of the cake was filled with the chocolate frosting. The vanilla piece was then cut in half on a slight diagonal. I placed the large portion of the cake just off center width wise on my tray, then placed 1 of the vanilla pieces on the front side and the other on top as pictured. Then, I frosted with the espresso frosting. After frosting, I used a fork to make bark lines. Mix straight lines with some slightly curved ones, make a few swirls for knot holes, etc. You can leave the cut ends unfrosted so that it will look like tree rings, but since I had different colored fillings, I decided to frost the ends and draw the tree rings with the fork.

After frosting, decorate as desired. As mentioned above, I used fresh rosemary sprigs for the pine boughs. The mushrooms were attached to the tray using a bit of leftover frosting. The ones on the cake were just sat into the cake frosting. You can also grind up chocolate wafer cookies in the food processor and use that to make "dirt" for even more realism. I meant to, just forgot to buy the wafers and then ran out of time trying to get everything done.
 
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Burt Blank said:
medtran49 Bravo a Buche that would grace any table. I showed Mrs B the pics, she is very impressed which is rare.
Click to expand...

Thank you both! Not sure if I'll ever make one again. Maybe if all I have to make is the dessert itself, but probably not if I have to make other parts of the meal as well. It was fun, even though it was a lot of work.
 
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