Yesterday was Boxing Day, a tradition we’ve inherited from the UK. Although the history is quite different to what it has become today, it’s still a national holiday in Canada where many businesses are still closed and people get a day off. Except for retail stores! It’s a kind of Black Friday; sale madness and shopping frenzy! We’re heading down town to see if any bargains were meant for us, and we’ll be sampling our first new restaurant for lunch. In the meantime I have the final installment of the Christmas Baking Frenzy 2011 to share with you.
I have to admit that I have not made our Yule Log in years (since 2007, to be exact!). Charles at Five Euro Foods has inspired me to dust off my Mom’s ancient Hungarian Cookbook, drag out my Hungarian English Dictionary and bake my Mom’s traditional Yule Log. Our log is a marriage of the Hungarian Piskota (pronounced Pishkoata) and the traditional Canadian Yule Log with butter cream and a little of my Mom’s creative addition, whipped cream. But this year I forgot to buy the whipping cream and I had a logistic issue with transporting the cake so, like Charles I had to stick with a butter cream for the log. And some cute little snowflake decorations.
As I commented on Charles’ post that my Mom always decorated her Yule Log with little meringue mushrooms. When I was old enough, it was my job to pipe the mushroom shapes onto the parchment-lined cookie sheet and then when dried and cooled I would assemble them with the melted chocolate! What fond memories Charles’ blog brought back, thank you! Sadly, this year I tried three times to make my mushroom meringues and three times the meringue failed, so no mushroom meringues this year! Insert Sad face here.
Oh well, it seems that it’s usually me that eats them anyway, and I just don’t need it this year!
Gather 'round the table, y'all. It's time for dessert!
The Family Yule Log
Ingredients:
- 4 large eggs
- 120 g sugar
- 120 g all purpose flour
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp grated lemon zest
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar.
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Line a 9″ x 13″ cake pan or jelly roll pan with parchment paper, carefully folding the corners. Spray with non-stick cooking spray.
- Separate the eggs into two medium bowls. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, but not dry. Set aside.
- Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and creamy and falls in a thick ribbon.
- Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the pale egg yolk mixture.
- Sift about 1/3 of the flour into the egg yolk mixture, then alternate folding in with the egg whites being careful not to deflate the batter.
- Once all of the egg whites and flour have been folded in, the mixture will be thick. Pour carefully onto your prepared baking pan and spread out evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until your cake tester comes out clean.
- Lift the cake out of the pan using the parchment edges and lay onto a clean white cheesecloth sprinkled with the 2 tbsp sugar. Taking the short end, begin to roll the cake up tightly. Twist the cheesecloth ends tightly and allow to cool completely.
Rich Chocolate Butter Cream
Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup butter
- 2 cups sifted icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 squares unsweetened chocolate melted and cooled.
- 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam
Directions:
- Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Slowly add the icing sugar and beat until entirely incorporated and fluffy.
- Slowly drizzle in the melted chocolate and beat well.
Cake Assembly:
Directions:
- Carefully unroll the cooled cake.
- Brush the inside of the roll with the raspberry jam (if it is too thick, you may want to heat it up a bit but if you do, make sure it is cooled before you add the Butter Cream).
- Spread about 1/3 of the butter cream on the inside of the roll. Carefully roll up the cake tightly.
- Place the roll onto your serving platter, roll side down.
- Spread the remaining butter cream evenly over the cake, covering both ends.
- Decorate with meringue mushrooms and silly plastic decorations (sadly, I forgot where I put ours :-()
I wish to thank you all for joining me while I baked for the last couple of weeks.
Kitcheninspirations 