As Christmas is a busy time for most of us, home baking often gets pushed to one side and we revert to shop bought products. With this in mind here is my last minute Yuletide Log which, if you take a short-cut “cheat” on the way, takes no longer than 30 minutes to prepare. For the purists amongst you I have included the full-blown version. I have used a basic swiss roll recipe, which is typically dusted with sugar and filled with jam or cream, but here I have added cocoa powder, and a chocolate filling and covering. Give it a try and enjoy.
Yuletide Log
Ingredients:
- 4 large eggs
- 100g caster sugar
- 65g self-raising flour
- 40g cocoa powder
Filling and topping:
“Cheat’s” Buttercream filling & topping
- Betty Crocker Chocolate Fondant spread or Chocolate Buttercream, (available from most large supermarkets)
“Purists” Buttercream filling & topping
- 75g softened butter
- 225g sifted icing sugar
- 50g melted chocolate (cooled)
- 2 tsp milk
Preheat oven to 220°C/Fan 200°C/Gas 7. Grease a 13 x 9 inch tin and line with baking parchment.
Whisk the eggs and sugar in a bowl until mixture is light and fluffy (you should have a trail when whisk is lifted out). Sift flour and cocoa powder into bowl and gently fold into mixture. Do not beat as you need to retain all the air that you have whisked in. Pour mixture and spread into prepared tin, gently shaking to level out. Place in oven for 10 minutes – the sponge should have started to shrink from the edges of tin.
Whilst sponge is in the oven cut a piece of baking parchment slightly larger than tin and dust with caster sugar.
Turn the sponge out onto the sugared baking parchment, quickly remove the parchment on the bottom of the cake and trim the sides of the sponge. Roll up the cake firmly with the parchment inside and leave to cool.
At this point if you are not using the “cheats” method, you need to prepare buttercream by beating together butter and icing sugar until it is light and creamy in texture. Mix in cooled melted chocolate and milk.
When sponge is cool unroll and spread with filling, roll up tightly and spread with remaining filling.
Finally dust with icing sugar and decorate as desired.
You are my inspiration , I own few web logs and often run out from to post .