This week’s recipe for Cook the Book Fridays from David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen was a classic French holiday dessert – Bûche de Noël. David’s recipe makes a massive cake so I halved it, making enough for around 6-8 (which was shared between lucky neighbours last weekend!). I’ve made a Bûche de Noël once before – for Tuesdays with Dorie from Baking Chez Moi and
The recipe itself is a combination of a number of recipes that you need to plan out, so more than anything, you need to be organised. None of the recipes is particularly complicated but planning ahead is key. There’s the genoise (cake), the ricotta filling, the orange syrup, the chocolate ganache and the meringue mushrooms. To be honest, the thing I had the most trouble with in terms of the recipes was the meringue mushrooms. Clearly I need more practice 😉 Everything else was pretty straightforward, except (as you can see!) the assembling and decorating and making it look pretty! Again, I need some help here!
I made this over the course of two days – the cake, syrup, filling and mushrooms on Day 1, and I assembled the rolled and filled cake on this day too. The next day, I made the chocolate ganache, cut and assembled the cake and frosted the cake. My ganache was taking AGES to set enough to frost the cake with an offset spatula and I was running out of light so I ended up pouring the ganache over the top. A couple of hours later I found the ganache, spreadable, at room temperature. Patience, they say, is a virtue…. (although I kind of like the glossy finish on mine!).
I was impressed I managed to get this made the weekend before the last week of school and was happy it wasn’t actually all that hard. I’d definitely try this again – loved the genoise cake – it’s is such a great blank slate for all sorts of flavours!
Get the recipe for David Lebovitz’s Bûche de Noël on page 319 of My Paris Kitchen.
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Mardi, your cake looks beautiful! I agree, this was a very fun project! Merry Christmas!
I so agree with you that getting organized is key. Your chocolate ganache is surely glossy and adds sparkle to your cake. Well done.
Looks beautiful. I had more trouble making the mushrooms than anything else. But it was a fun recipe and all it takes is planning and time. Merry Christmas
Beautiful cake even the mushrooms.
My ganache also took forever, and I’d kept in mind your experiences on the Cs&Cs so I allowed myself the leeway in my schedule. I think it was a good hour or two before it was the right consistency. I actually enjoyed making this one a bit more than the one we did for BCM! It certainly came out more impressive visually! Looks great, Mardi!
what do you mean– it looks great!!
It’s so cute! My ganache took a long time to get spreadable too. I was quite happy with the end result though, especially those mushrooms! Happy New Year!