Sunday, December 28, 2008

Daring Bakers December - French Yule Log

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

Wow what a challenge! While I was tempted to say I was too busy to even attempt such a complicated recipe I'm very glad I had a go. And really after reading through the recipe a few times and deciding which variation of each component to do, it seemed achievable!

Really this recipe is 6 relatively straightforward recipes in one (or 7 if you count the praline I had to make from scratch for one of the components).

Despite making a huge mess and using practically every pot, pan, spoon, spatula and appliance I own, I only struck a few problems.

Firstly while making the Chocolate Mousse component. The basic technique was to make a sugar and glucose syrup which is heated to the soft ball stage and then to beat this into already whipped egg yolks. My first attempt resulted in this ...

a stringy sticky cobwebby tangle of sugar around the beater which was incredibly hard to remove! Being pregnant I was already concerned about this mix being hot enough to cook the egg yolks and I don't think even a single drop of the sugar mix actually touched the eggs at that point!

So I made 2 extra batches of the sugar syrup, hoping that enough of it would get in to do the job. It certainly thickened up beautifully and became incredibly glossy so I took that as a good sign.

My other main issue was weather related. It was a very hot and humid 33 degrees the day I made this and neither the mousse or ganache actually became firm despite hours in the fridge. In the end I just ladled my soupy mousse over each layer and drizzled in the ganache and it seemed to work.

I also ended up with nowhere near enough icing to cover the log. What I should have done was attempted to spread the icing over the whole log (like a crumb coat) and then made a second batch. But by that stage I was pretty much over it so left it with a relatively festive drizzle which ran down the sides.

The only other issue came with the praline layer. I used my homemade praline with crushed oat flake cereal and ended up with quite a thick slab. This ended up being easy to eat once it was in pieces but none of us had the strength to break it with a spoon in our bowls. 'Scuse fingers!

This was an incredibly impressive dessert which I served at our early Christmas Eve Dinner on the 21st. It was relatively easy to slice after 20 minutes in the fridge and definitely rich enough not to need any extra decoration or accompaniments.

From top to bottom the layers are:
  • Milk/Dark Chocolate Icing
  • Lemon Daquoise
  • Milk Chocolate Mousse
  • Vanilla Creme Brulee
  • Milk Chocolate Mousse
  • Dark Chocolate Ganache
  • Praline Crisp
  • Milk Chocolate Mousse
  • Lemon Daquoise
What a mouthful!

Thank you to Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux for choosing such an exciting and challenging recipe. There is no way I would have attempted this on my own otherwise and their advice in the forum over the past month was invaluable!

13 comments:

  1. A beautiful log! Very well done!

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  2. Your layers look absolutely perfect! Great job. I , too, almost ran away screaming when I found out this was the recipe for the month. I'm glad I did it though.

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  3. Great job! Congrats on conquering it!

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  4. "relatively festive drizzle". That makes me smile. Mine is awaiting the RFD right now and I'll post tomorrow. Glad to know that you had the same experiences as I did with the recipe!

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  5. Lovely log, even the dripping icing is festive! The hot temperature made this even more of a challenge...very impressed! Great job!

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  6. It looks really lovely! With the sugar syrup, I have learned to pour it in just to the side of the beater so as to not make a sugar splatter mess. I love the web picture though, makes for a laugh indeed! Great job with your log!

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  7. we found it difficult to eat too...though it was certainly pretty! wonderful job w/your log! i had trouble w/the glaze too, but i think yours look much better than mine :)

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  8. Oh dear,
    It was a bit challengeing making mousse with pate a bombee.
    I must admit though, if you didn't mention it and didn't post the picture, who would have thought that you had this problem? Because your log look beautiful!
    Cheers,
    Elra

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  9. Well done on your log! This was a really fun challenge. Blessed Christmas to you and yours!

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  10. It looks fantastic!! I was tempted to opt out too, and was very glad that I managed to find some time to make this gem :)

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  11. Your log looks great & sounds delicious! I really like the festive drizzle of the icing down the sides. The lemon dacquiose sounds really good. I bet that went really well with the mousse & cream brulee layers. Great job.

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  12. oh my goodness, what a yummy looking log.

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Thanks for reading! Questions or comments? I would love to hear from you ...

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