Jenny Flynn, the head chef at Faithlegg House Hotel, joined Maria McCann on The Saturday Café for Food at Faithlegg. Jenny gets festive for this week with a recipe for Traditional Chocolate Yule Log.
Traditional Chocolate Yule Log
A Christmas favourite of mine is a yule log. The history of the yule log is interesting, food is always at the centre of all seasonal changes, and the Pre-Christian origins, French, Germanic and Scandinavian peoples celebrated ‘Yule’ , a midwinter festival. A massive log, often an entire tree trunk, was dragged into the hall, its end placed in the hearth. It was meant to burn slowly for the ‘12 days of Yule’, symbolising warmth, protection, and the return of the sun.
For the sponge, you’ll need a Swiss roll baking tray and to preheat your oven to 200c.
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 85g golden caster sugar
- 85g cream flour (minus 2 tbsp)
- 2 tbsp of cocoa powder
- ½ tsp baking powder
Cake Method
- Prepare your baking tray, with baking parchment greased with butter.
- Beat the sugar and eggs together with an electric whisk for about 8 mins until thick and creamy, or holding the figure 8.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder and fold into the egg mixture being careful not to knock the air out.
- Bake for about 10 mins
- When cooked, lay a sheet of baking parchment or a tea towel on a work surface, tip it onto the work surface, peel off the lining paper then roll the cake up from its longest edge with the towel inside leave it to cool.
Sugar Icing mix ingredients
- 50g butter 140g dark chocolate
- 1tbsp golden syrup
- 284ml double cream or whipping cream
- 200g icing sugar sifted
- 2-3extra strong mints
Method
- melt the butter and dark chocolate in a bowl over pan of hot water.
- Take from the heat stir in the golden syrup and 25ml of the cream,
- Beat in the icing sugar until smooth.
Assembly
- Whisk the remaining cream until it holds it shape. Unravel the cake, spread the cream over the sponge and roll it into a log again.
- Cut a thick diagonal slice from one end of the log. Lift the log on to a plate then arrange on the side with the diagonal cut against the cake to make it look like a log.
- Spread the icing over the log and branch, then use a fork to mark the icing to give the effect of tree bark. Scatter over the crushed mints to give a snow effect (you can use icing sugar also but crushed mints will stay white on the top for longer)
Enjoy, and happy Christmas!
Jenny Flynn
