Bûche de Noël (Yule Log Cake)

How to make Bûche de Noël (Yule Log Cake) that is delicious and spectacular! With this perfect step by step guide, you can make a classic chocolate yule log that’ll be the star of your Christmas party!

A gorgeous Buche de Noel cake, perfect for the holiday season!

This yule log recipe is the most comprehensive guide to making this classic Christmas treat. Here, you’ll learn how to make,

• the perfect chocolate swiss roll cake (or even a vanilla swiss roll cake),
• the perfect, light filling that will satisfy your sweet tooth, while not being too rich,
• two types of yule log – a buche de noel cake with “branches”, or just a straight single cake,
• meringue mushrooms for decoration,
• chocolate bark shards, for a realistic tree look,
• a delicious and simple chocolate frosting, and make it look like a tree on the cake.

Yule log cakes (bûche de noël cake) are a beautiful, sought after dessert during Christmas. It originated in France, and is now popular in many European countries, and other parts of the world.

Not gonna lie, a homemade buche de noel is a labor of love. You can tell that from the looks of it. But it’s more than likely to be the centerpiece of your Christmas party spread. You can make the easy version or the hard version, or anything in between, depending on time and your comfort level.

Easy version

Chocolate swiss roll cake (single log), filled with chocolate whipped cream frosting, and frosted with a whipped chocolate ganache.

Hard version

Chocolate swiss roll cake with branches (two cake rolls), filled with chocolate whipped cream (or chocolate buttercream; either American buttercream or Swiss meringue buttercream), and covered with chocolate ganache and tempered chocolate shards.

Making the chocolate swiss roll cake for the buche de noel cake

Check out my comprehensive post on making perfect chocolate swiss roll cake here.

But here’s a quick overview of how the swiss roll cakes are made and how to make that process easy.

• Prep the jelly roll pan – Butter and line a 10 x 15 inch pan with parchment paper. For a branched buche de noel, you may need to prepare two pans, and make this recipe twice for two chocolate swiss rolls.
• Get all the ingredients ready – Read the full recipe first and measure all the ingredients and have them ready to go.
• Heat the eggs and sugar, and whisk to form a stable egg foam. This egg foam is the base for the sponge cake that will make the swiss roll. Heat the eggs and sugar over a double boiler until warm, and then whisk until tripled in size.
• Sift the dry ingredients (flour cocoa, and baking powder), and gently fold them in. Take care not to deflate the batter while you fold in the dry ingredients! Make sure that there are no pockets of dry ingredients. Otherwise you will end up with flour clumps in your final cake.
• Emulsify the clarified butter / melted butter. Add some of the cake batter to the butter and mix until the butter has completely mixed in with the batter.
• Fold in the butter mixture through the cake batter. Evenly pour the emulsified butter mixture over the surface of the remaining batter in the bowl. Then carefully fold it in to mix, without deflating the batter.

Baking and shaping the cake

• Bake the cake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in an oven preheated to 350 F / 180 C.
• Roll up the warm cake to help maintain its shape. Remove the baked cake from the oven, then roll it up, and let it cool while wrapped in parchment paper. You can find all the tips on how to do this in the post here.
• Unroll and fill the cake. Let the swiss roll cake cool completely. Then carefully unroll the cake. Spread chocolate whipped cream in an even layer on the unrolled cake. Roll up the cake again (without the parchment paper this time) and let it set in the fridge, covered in plastic wrap.

Now your chocolate yule cake base is ready!

If you’d like to make your buche de noel cake with a vanilla swiss roll cake instead, you can totally do that too! Just follow this recipe here to make the vanilla version.

How to make the chocolate whipped cream filling

I can pretty much eat this on its own. It’s that good! This chocolate whipped cream is light, deeply chocolatey, and it’s the perfect filling for your chocolate buche de noel.

This is a stabilized whipped cream flavored with cocoa powder.

The gelatin is bloomed in a small bowl, and then microwaved for a few seconds to dissolve.

CHILLED heavy cream is mixed with powdered sugar (confectioner’s sugar), cocoa powder, and vanilla.

While whisking the cream on high speed, the melted gelatin is added. Then reduce the speed and continue to whisk the cream until you have a beautifully whipped chocolate whipped cream. The peaks will be between soft peaks and stiff peaks (mid peak).

Make this while your cake is cooling, or just before you’re ready to unroll and fill your chocolate yule log cake.

Whipped chocolate ganache frosting

This frosting couldn’t be any easier to make. It’s the perfect way to top your beautiful buche de noel. It’s also perfect to be used as the “glue” to stick the chocolate shards.

I used an offset spatula to create the bark-like effect by dragging it along the surface of the buttercream. You can also use a fork to create that bark-like texture.

This frosting is simply a 1 : 1 ratio of semisweet chocolate and heavy whipping cream, plus a pinch of salt. That’s it.

For the frosting, let the chocolate ganache cool down to room temperature (about 72 F), and whisk it on high speed with the whisk attachment in your electric mixer or stand mixer for 2 – 3 minutes. The frosting will turn a bit lighter in color and look fluffier. It’s now ready to be used as frosting.

If you’re covering your cake with the shards instead, then you can also just use the ganache once thickened, WITHOUT whipping it. Either way works.

Optional decorations

How to make chocolate shards for the chocolate bark

This is an optional decoration idea for your Bûche de Noël. It gives the cake a more realistic bark-like look, but there’s work involved with this process.

I recommend doing this IF you are comfortable tempering chocolate and working with chocolate.

How to temper chocolate

This is a quick guide on how to temper chocolate, but I’ll be sharing a more in depth article on this soon.

Measure out the chocolate first. Make sure it’s couverture chocolate.

Chop the chocolate into smaller pieces (if you’re using a block). Take 25% of the chocolate that you will be using, and chop that into finer pieces (even if you’re using wafers or couverture chips).

Place the other 75% of the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl and melt it over a bain marie (double boiler). Do NOT exceed 118 F (I used milk chocolate here).

Once the chocolate is melted, remove it from the heat and immediately add the previous 25% of the chocolate that was chopped. Stir until dissolved. The temperature should go down to about 86 – 87 F.

If the temperature is still warmer than this, then add more chopped up chocolate (a little at a time), and stir it in until it melts and the chocolate cools down to the right temperature. Keep stirring and agitating the chocolate to melt the added chocolate. The chocolate will thicken as it gets closer to being tempered.

Once tempered (between 86 – 87 F), it’s ready to be used.

To make chocolate shards

Place a long parchment paper on your work surface. Pool the chocolate at one end, then thinly spread the chocolate on the parchment paper with an offset spatula.

Once spread, start rolling up the parchment paper along with the chocolate. The chocolate should not be set at this point, so it should be easy to roll up the parchment paper to form a tube. You want the tube to be fairly narrow, so that the shards will also be narrow and curved.

Refrigerate and let the chocolate set for at least 1 – 2 hours. When you unroll the parchment paper, the set chocolate will break into long, slightly curved shards. These shards can then be used to decorate your cake.

If your chocolate didn’t temper properly, and has white streaks on them, don’t worry! You’ll be dusting the cake with confectioner’s sugar, so no one’s going to know. 😉

How to make meringue mushrooms

Meringue mushrooms are very easy to make, but takes a little time. And as you can see in the pictures, they add a lovely natural look to your yule log cake.

Egg whites are whisked in a large bowl at high speed, with sugar, salt, and cream of tartar. When the egg whites reach stiff peaks, and the sugar is dissolved, transfer the mix into a piping bag.

Pipe mushroom shapes on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Pipe rounded mushroom caps that are about 1 inch in diameter, and pointed mushroom bases. Bake in a preheated oven until dried out, without caramelization.

Let them cool completely. The meringue mushrooms will become crisp as they cool.

Apply a thin layer of melted chocolate on the bottom of the mushroom caps and stick them on top of the pointed mushroom bases.

Brush the tops of the meringue mushroom with cocoa powder which will give it a more natural look. And there you have it. Meringue mushrooms for your chocolate yule log are done.

Now you can stick these on your buche de noel cake using melted chocolate, or whipped chocolate ganache.

How to assemble your buche de noel cake

Now let’s make that gorgeous chocolate yule log cake.

To make a branched yule log cake

Make two chocolate swiss rolls. Cut one swiss roll into two portions at an angle, so that the two angled portions will attach to the sides of the first swiss roll to look like branches. You can choose to make two branches like I’ve done in the pictures here or just one. You can also choose to have one on top, and one on the side.

Use the whipped chocolate ganache to stick these portions onto your first swiss roll cake. You may need a thick layer to fill in the gaps and make the surface smooth. A small offset spatula is your friend here.

Once the cake is shaped, it’s time to frost it.

Frosting your yule log cake

For chocolate shards

Spread a thin layer of the cooled, thickened chocolate ganache on just a portion of your cake, and stick the chocolate shards while the ganache is still soft. Repeat until the whole cake is covered.

Plain frosted

For the frosted version, you only need to spread an even layer of whipped chocolate ganache on the cake and then drag the tip of your small spatula along the cake to create a bark like texture. You can use a fork instead too.

As the frosting sets on the chilled cake, the ganache will harden. This is normal.

If you don’t want to use whipped chocolate ganache, and prefer to have a frosting that will remain soft at room temperature, you can use this recipe for chocolate buttercream instead.

Once you’ve frosted the cake, dust it with some confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar). Now it’s ready to be served!

Alternatively, you can decorate it with some meringue mushrooms as well if you like. If you have chocolate shards, you can stick the mushrooms with melted chocolate on them. Or if you simply covered the cake with buttercream or whipped ganache, you can use the same to stick the mushrooms on as well.

Storing the buche de noel cake

A frosted cake will keep for about 4 – 5 days in an air-tight container in the fridge. The meringue mushrooms should ONLY be added before serving, because they will soften very quickly.

Let the cake thaw out at room temperature before serving though. The cake and the filling will be softer and more delicious that way.

Serving instructions

This cake is the perfect Christmas treat, because it’s so light, fluffy, delicious, and a great centerpiece for your Christmas spread.

Or if you’re feeling particularly generous, it’s a great edible gift during the holidays too.

To serve the buche de noel, make sure to cut the cake with a warm, sharp knife. This helps with getting nice, clean slices. A warm knife will help cut through the ganache and/or the chocolate shards as well.