Yule Log

With speculoos (Lotus) and chocolate.

Ahh the holiday seasons! What a great excuse to enjoy sweet desserts guilt free. I prepared a delicious Christmas log that I cannot wait to share with you. While this log turned out amazingly delicious, I was still disappointed that the filling was too thin, therefore I could not put too much of it. However, every recipe comes with its own mistakes, and luckily I learn them! So, I am updating the ingredients for the speculoos filling to have a thicker consistency and turn out not only delicious, but perfect.

Ingredients

This log can easily feed 10-12 people.

Chocolate Ganache

  • 100g dark chocolate
  • 75g milk chocolate
  • 150g heavy cream
  • 30g butter, cubed

Speculoos Ganache

  • 120g white chocolate
  • 120g speculoos (Lotus) spread
  • 200g heavy cream (100g cold and 100g hot)
  • Some speculoos (Lotus) cookies, crushed

Cake

  • 100g cake flour
  • 50g corn starch
  • 130g sugar
  • 60g butter
  • 5 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

Vanilla Syrup

  • 100mL water
  • 60g sugar
  • A splash of vanilla extract

Procedure

Chocolate Ganache

  1. Cut the dark and milk chocolate into small pieces and put them in a bowl.
  2. Add the cream into a saucepan and bring it to boil at medium heat. Stir the bottom so nothing sticks to it.
  3. Pour the hot cream on top of the chocolate. Let the mixture sit for 2-3 minutes, then mix with a spatula. The chocolate will melt and the everything will incorporate smoothly.
  4. Add the cubed butter and mix in until it melts as well.
  5. Cover with a plastic wrap (in contact with the ganache so no layer forms) and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before using.

Speculoos Ganache

  1. Cut the white chocolate into small pieces and put them in a bowl.
  2. Add half the cream (100g) into a saucepan and bring it to boil at medium heat. Stir the bottom so nothing sticks to it.
  3. Pour the hot cream on top of the white chocolate. Let the mixture sit for 2-3 minutes, then mix with a spatula until smooth.
  4. Add the speculoos spread and mix in until it melts as well.
  5. Add the other half of the cream that stayed cold and mix till smooth.
  6. Cover with a plastic wrap (in contact with the ganache so no layer forms) and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before using.

Vanilla Syrup

  1. Add all the ingredients into a sauce pan.
  2. Bring to a boil and stir so that the sugar melts.
  3. Let the syrup cool down before use.

The Cake and Assembly

  1. Begin by separating the egg yolks from the whites into two different containers.
  2. Add roughly half the sugar into the yolks, and beat with an electric hand mixer until the yolks become fluffier and turn into a light yellow color.
  3. Measure the flour, corn starch and baking powder in a bowl, then sift them together on the yolks.
  4. Mix roughly with a spatula, then add the melted butter.
  5. Mix everything together until well incorporated.
  6. Now move to beating the egg whites. Use the hand mixer but make sure to clean it so that there are no traces of yolk on it. Add the other half of the sugar while beating, until you get hard peaks. You will know the mixture is ready when you can invert the bowl without anything falling down.
  7. Take a small portion of the egg whites and incorporate it in the first mixture to loosen it a bit.
  8. Next, gradually incorporate the whites by carefully folding it in the first mixture, so that you do not lose the air bubbles.
  9. Pour the cake mixture into a nonstick baking tray, lined with parchment paper.
  10. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 10 minutes.
  11. Take it out and flip it on another parchment paper while still hot.
  12. Remove the original parchment paper that was in the oven with the cake.
  13. Now you should brush in vanilla syrup on the cake to get a moist texture, and, more importantly, to avoid that the cake breaks when rolling it.
  14. While the cake is still hot, roll it with the parchment paper together to form the log shape. You may trim the edges before for a better shape.
  15. Important: Let the rolled cake cool down completely to room temperature before continuing. Otherwise the ganache will melt and not hold its shape. The goal of the first roll is to get the cake used to its log shape so that it won’t break when cooled.
  16. In the mean time, you can take out the ganaches from the fridge, then beat them separately using the hand mixer to get a thick texture. The speculoos ganache should need more beating than the chocolate one. Make sure you return the ganaches to the fridge if you will not use them immediately. In my video, the speculoos ganache was a bit too liquid, but the result tasted great anyway. The reason is that I left it out a bit before using it, as well as not having enough white chocolate (I modified the ingredients in this recipe to account for that).
  17. Once the cake roll is cooled down, unroll it carefully on a working surface.
  18. Fill in a good amount of the speculoos ganache, while smoothing it out to get an even layer.
  19. Sprinkle some crushed speculoos biscuit for crunchiness.
  20. Roll the cake carefully again, this time without the parchment paper. You can make use of the parchment paper to tighten the roll a bit.
  21. Transfer the log to a presentation dish, then start adding the chocolate ganache on top, while smoothing it out, in an even layer. Make sure to get all the sides (except the bottom) to get a better look.
  22. With a fork, make some traces along the ganache to make it look like a real log.
  23. Decorate with any Christmas ornaments. I also added some sugar paste cut into snowflakes using a cookie cutter. Finally, sprinkle some powdered sugar for a snowy look.
  24. Now, go impress your guests and enjoy!

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