Les Poissonchats

The forever Buche de Noel. It’s quite a French thing, the Buche de Noel. For all the time I’ve been in France we’re always having a Buche de Noel for Christmas dessert, I usually make it myself, exceptionally, if I’m really just too busy, I resort to the local bakery.

The tradition isn’t super seasoned, probably goes back to the 19th century, but really made it’s success in the after war years when the memory of butter being a luxury still was engraved in people’s minds. To me it’s a beautiful tradition, also because of it’s reference to much older rites of blessing the household fire and giving thanks to the little people helping in the house. 

This year’s Buche is an orange buttercream with a crispy dark chocolate heart, chocolate frosting and candied orange peel. If it’s a hit, and we’ll know it by tomorrow night, it will definitely go into my next book! 

Aaaand as soon it will be Christmas Day, here’s a little gift of me, from my hearth to yours: The original Buche de Noel recipe from my cookbook. Bake it with love.

What you’ll need

A good Bûche de Noel requires a lot of preparation time. That’s why it’s best to start with the genoise and the butter cream the day before. For success, all ingredients should be at room temperature, so it’s best to take them out of the fridge a few hours in advance. Ideally, you start with the butter cream.

For the vanilla butter cream

• 3dl sweet farm cream
• 1 vanilla pod, halved and scraped
• 2 egg yolks (you can use the egg whites to make meringues for example)
• 100g sugar
• 2 tablespoons cherry liqueur
• 25g maizena
• 200g butter, room temperature
• 30g powdered sugar
• Some more cherry liqueur
• Approx. 20 tipsy cherries

For the genoise

• 4 egg yolks
• 4 egg whites
• A pinch of Fleur de Sel
• 125g sugar
• 75g white flour
• 50g maizena
• 50g butter

For the glaze

• 150g powdered sugar
• 50ml water
• 2 tablespoons rose water
• Ice water

For the snowy fir trees

• Four to five pine tips
• Some whipped egg white

HOW TO COOK IT

Start with the buttercream. Dissolve the maizena in the cherry liqueur. Heat the cream with the vanilla pod in a pan. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolk with the sugar until you get a foamy white sticky mess. Then stir in the dissolved maizena and add the vanilla cream while stirring constantly. When everything is well mixed, put it back in the pan and bring to boil. The mixture must rise properly so that it thickens nicely. Remove from the heat immediately once it’s thickening and put in a separate bowl. It is best to then place cling film directly on the mixture so that no skin forms. Allow to cool to room temperature in a cool place.

Beat the room-temperature butter with the icing sugar for at least 10 minutes until it is foamy, then add the vanilla cream a spoonful at a time. To make the buttercream a success, it is important that all ingredients are at the same temperature. If small lumps form, just keep stirring until the mixture is homogeneous again. If it won’t amalgamate, put the bowl in a bain marie at 27°C maximum temperature. Set aside and continue with the genoise.

Preheat the oven to 180°C, no fan.

The genoise must be mixed warm and then cooled down, this will make for an elastic and airy bisquit. It is best to warm up a steel bowl for this. To avoid burning yourself, work with oven gloves! First put the sugar in the bowl and then the egg yolk, mix well with the mixer. After about five minutes, put the bowl in a cool place, e.g. by the open kitchen window, and continue to beat the mixture until it is very light and cool. If you are working with a stand mixer, which is recommended for this recipe, you can also cool the bowl down with a little ice water. Stirring well is the key. Melt the butter in a small pan and remove the white foam that forms with a teaspoon. Meanwhile, stir the white flour and maizena into the egg mixture and finally add the melted butter. Stir well again. Beat the egg white with a pinch of fleur de sel until stiff and fold in carefully. Spread with a rubber spoon about 1cm thick on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for 10 minutes. After baking, remove from the oven immediately and cover with a damp kitchen towel. Carefully turn out onto the table. Then remove the baking paper, you can moisten it a little and roll up the genoise with the towel straight away so that it doesn’t break when you work with it later. Leave to cool rolled up for ten minutes.

Carefully roll out the genoise and drizzle with cherry liqueur as desired. Spread the buttercream and place the tipsy cherries on top. Then carefully roll it up again and refrigerate for at least four hours. In the meantime, you may prepare the fir trees. To do this, turn the tips of the fir trees over so that the needles are pointing downwards and pinch off the lowest needles so that the fir tree has a trunk that you can later stick into the icing.

Dip the trees in the foamy egg white so that it looks as if the fir trees are covered in a thick layer of snow. Leave to dry on baking paper.

For the glaze you have to mix well for about 15 minutes, I recommend you use a stand mixer. To make the glaze nice and shiny you have to pay close attention to the temperature and therefore need a thermometer. Before you start, prepare ice water in a large bowl, i.e. fill it with water and add ice cubes or a cool pack.

In a pan, heat the water and the powdered sugar to 114°C and cool the pan in the ice water immediately after it has reached the temperature so that the sugar syrup does not continue to boil. Allow to cool to 75°C, put it in a separate bowl and mix for about 15 minutes until the mixture becomes completely white. Then add the rose water and mix for another three minutes.

Before glazing, cut off the ends of the log and eat those with a cup of coffee in the chaos of preparing for the party, a break in the eye of the storm, so to speak. Then coat the log with the sugar glaze and decorate with the snow-covered fir trees.

How to eat it

After a sumptuous feast, stuffed and happy. Afterwards you may need a nice little Schnapps to help yourself up again. .

*This is Les Poissonchats Wondrous Advent Calendar! Advent calendars are a big tradition where I come from: every day until Christmas Day you prepare a small gift for a loved one, fourandtwenty little surprises. Advent calendars come in beautifully old fashioned prints on cardboard, extra glitter and glory, and each day there’s a little perforated window waiting for you be opened. Others are more elaborate, pretty baskets filled with twenty four numbered parcels, red velvet ribbons and sprigs of fir. The one I’m making for you this season is a different one altogether, it comes in digital form. Unless specially marked, all content is hand-stitched by myself, lovingly compiled and written for your amusement.