Well, this year I’m going to break all the traditions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Maybe because it’s still 15\u00b0 C outside and any snow seems veeery far<\/strong>. Or also because I started creating\u00a0my sourdough starter<\/strong> more than a month ago… and after several failures, the sourdough is not ready yet, so bye bye panettone dreams<\/strong> (note: sourdough is THE fundamental ingredient for a panettone).<\/p>\n Moreover,\u00a0thanks to David Letterman,\u00a0last year I discovered “Baby please come home”<\/em>, a Christmas song that wins above all (and which\u00a0is massively famous in the US but not here), so bye bye Mariah Carey too<\/em>!<\/p>\n So what’s left with no traditions? Stealing\u00a0other traditions, of course… like the French\u00a0yule log<\/strong> (or Swiss roll<\/strong> or b\u00fbche<\/strong>, whatever you want to call it).<\/p>\n For this year, I decided to invent my own recipe<\/strong> for a b\u00fbche de No\u00ebl<\/strong> and I’m pretty satisfied with the result. I am not very confident yet when it comes to creating a recipe, but I followed a very practical approach<\/strong>. From what I understood about pastry in these years, a good\u00a0cake must have<\/strong>:<\/p>\n So that’s it, I read a few recipes here and there and made a plan: I re-used the flourless cocoa spongecake<\/strong> and bitter syrup from my chocolate log from\u00a0two years ago<\/a>, I invented a white chocolate vanilla ganache with clementine juice<\/strong> based on the pistachio ganache of this year’s\u00a0\u00e9clairs<\/a>, then chopped a bit (a loooot) of top-quality dark chocolate (70%) and sprinkled it everywhere. I finally rolled the cake, topped it with a simple Chantilly cream<\/a><\/strong>, a few bits of cocoa crumble<\/strong> (delicious!) and chocolate cutouts.<\/p>\n Now, the\u00a0cutouts<\/strong> were probably the most difficult part<\/strong> because chocolate has to be tempered<\/strong> and I don’t find it easy at all at home. Basically the chocolate has to be melted and reach 45\u00b0C, cooled down quickly (by adding more finely chopped chocolate) to 28\u00b0C then brought back\u00a0again to 30-31\u00b0C, without passing 32\u00b0C. Going above\u00a032\u00b0C will destroy the crystallization of chocolate and therefore the whole tempering process would have to be started again. If you are stressed at the sole idea of tempering chocolate, imagine how stressful it is to take pictures during this delicate process! (This is basically to justify why I don’t have any photo of my chocolate tempering attempt)<\/em>.<\/p>\n Long story short, I am definitely in love with this b\u00fbche!<\/strong> It is definitely simple<\/em> compared to how crazy pastry chefs go in designing their yule logs, but it tasted amazing! Especially after one day, the clementine flavour<\/strong> had time to sit and diffuse in the spongecake and filling, making the cake light, surprising and Christmassy<\/strong>! Happy holidays everybody!<\/strong> \ud83d\ude42![\"Recipe-Vanilla](\"http:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Recipe-Vanilla-yule-log-clementine-21.jpg\")
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