Bouche de Noel
This festive recipe, passed down from a French teacher, brings joy to every Yuletide.
This festive recipe, passed down from a French teacher, brings joy to every Yuletide.
- Carbohydrate 24.330475 g
- Cholesterol 569.5075 mg
- Fat 23.63507875 g
- Fiber 0.169968752190471 g
- Protein 16.641356875 g
- Saturated Fat 10.8387265625 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (178g)
- Sodium 209.6568125 mg
- Sugar 24.1605062478095 g
- Trans Fat 2.65950475 g
- Calories 373 calories
Step-by-step
- To make cake: Preheat oven to 400F. Grease 15.5" x 10.5" jelly roll pan. Line pan with wax paper. Grease and flour paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat egg whites with a mixer on high speed. Beat to soft peaks. Gradually beat in 1/2 cup of powdered sugar. Beat to stiff peaks. Set aside.
- In a small mixing bowl beat egg yolks on low speed until thick. Beat in 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and the 3 Tbsp cocoa at high speed. Fold egg yolk mixture into egg white. Spread in pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched.
- Invert cake onto powdered sugar coated towel and carefully remove wax paper. Starting at the narrow end, roll towel and cake up. Place seam side down on a wire rack to cool.
- To make filling: Beat all filling ingredients together. Unroll cooled cake. Spread filling on it and re-roll without ths towel.
- Finishing: Ice the cake with the chocolate frosting and decorate.
- Some notes on finishing: An end of the cake can be cut off and glued (using icing) to the side of the cake to make it look more like a log. When spreading the frosting on the cake, take some extra care to make it look more log-like.
- The spearmint candies are often too thick, so I slice them in half - retaining the more decorative side for the cake. The spearmint leaves together with the cinnamon candies look like holly and holly berries. Other decorative elements can be used; use your imagination!
Rolling a sponge cake requires immediate action the moment it leaves the oven. Invert the hot 15.5-by-10.5-inch jelly roll pan directly onto a towel dusted with powdered sugar before the crumb cools and loses its elasticity. Peel away the wax paper carefully to avoid tearing the delicate surface. Roll the warm cake and towel together immediately from the narrow end to train the crumb into a spiral shape, then let it rest seam-side down on a wire rack until completely cool. Whipped cream and cocoa filling goes inside only after this thermal memory is set, preventing cracks. Scaling this recipe up requires baking multiple pans separately rather than overcrowding the oven, because a thicker batter will not bake evenly in the required fifteen minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Once filled and re-rolled without the towel, coat the exterior in chocolate buttercream. Score the frosting with the tines of a fork to mimic bark texture, and anchor a cut-off end section to the side with extra icing to create a realistic branch stump. Finish decorating with halved candied spearmint leaves and red cinnamon candies arranged to resemble holly.
