We love repeating other people's traditions, especially if it is tasty, fun or beautiful! So we have a wonderful French tradition of cooking the Christmas log.
Each hostess makes a Christmas log in his own way, it is not necessary to repeat the classic recipe. Here are my children love the curd-orange version of the log and make it themselves.
Try it! It takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes to prepare.
Ingredients:
Eggs - 6 small pieces or 5 large ones
Sugar - a little less than a glass in the dough (200 grams)
Powdered sugar in cream - 250 grams (as a last resort, sugar is also possible)
Flour - glass (sift required)
Cocoa powder - 2-3 tablespoons
Big orange
Any jam (thick) - 150 grams
Custard Milk - 300 grams
Butter - 250 grams (room temperature)
Custard Blend Package (Optional)
Chocolate - 100 grams (dark is better, bitter)
Any cottage cheese - 200 grams (fresh is required)
Cognac (for flavor) - 1st. spoon (optional)
Cooking process:
Begin with the biscuit base. Eggs of mine (always!), Break and begin to beat at a low speed mixer.
Gradually add sugar in small portions. We note the time: beat 8 minutes, then increase the speed and work as a mixer for another 5 minutes.
Turn off the mixer. We take a hand whisk and very carefully pour into the dough sifted flour and cocoa.
We move the whisk slowly around the circle in one direction and try to interfere with the flour in the proteins without sieging them. We make movements in a circle and from the bottom up. The dough is very tender. It is necessary to spend no more than two minutes for this operation.
If you decide to mix the flour in the dough with a mixer, you should know that the dough will settle and the biscuit will be tough (we tried!).
If the dough is still subsided, mix half a spoonful of baking powder into it, this will save the biscuit.
Pour the dough on a baking tray, pre-laid baking paper. Layer thickness matters! It is necessary that the dough layer does not exceed 5-8 mm, because the biscuit also rises!
Put the biscuit in a preheated oven for 13-15 minutes, the temperature is 180-200C. The first 10 minutes, the oven in any case can not be opened! And after - carefully watch that the biscuit is not burnt.
While the biscuit is being baked, we will deal with the internal filling.
With orange remove the zest. It's simple.
Put jam on a plate. We pour out the zest. Add cognac and a little bit of orange juice. Stir.
That's all. The first filling is ready.
Now we will do custard. It is fast.
The contents of the package are diluted with 100 grams of milk. Another 200 grams of milk boiled in a saucepan.
As soon as the milk boils, pour the mixture with cold milk into the saucepan. Carefully pour in a thin stream. And we interfere, interfere, interfere ... two minutes and you can remove the cream from the stove. Let it cool.
Probably, the biscuit is ready!
Attention. We get the pan. We moisten with cold water and wring out a towel. Wet towel put directly on the biscuit, turn it with a towel down and roll up into a roll.
Leave it in this form to cool.
We return to the custard cream. It is necessary to add the cottage cheese and beat well. Chill.
If you have no custard, no problem. We just beat the cottage cheese with sugar (3 tablespoons) and add starch (1 tablespoon) - it will be delicious too!
While the roll cools down and the cream cheese cools, it’s time to apply the cream for decorating the Christmas log. The purpose of this cream is to become a “bark”, it should keep its shape well and imitate the bark of trees in color.
Color gives melted chocolate.
We throw a piece of butter in a saucepan and chop up a chocolate bar, slightly heat and stir.
The melted chocolate must be brought to a cold place, cooled.
While the chocolate is cooling, we will deploy our roll. Thoroughly make a jam with orange peel jam.
Give time, let the jam soak. 5-10 minutes. Then, on the jam, evenly distribute the cooled cottage cheese cream, retreating from the edges by 2 cm.
The most interesting moment is we roll up the roll. We are not in a hurry, we are rather tightly folding the “log”. Fix roll roll with a towel and take out in the cold. For half an hour no less. It's time to do butter cream, which should soon cover the “log”. Cooled melted chocolate mixed with butter (room temperature), first at low speed.
We put sugar powder into the cream and beat it intensively for 10 minutes. If there is no icing sugar, you can pour sugar and sugar, but not everyone can wait for it to dissolve in the cream. Most likely, the grains of sand will remain in the cream and will crunch on the teeth during the tasting of the Christmas log.
See how the color of the cream has changed in the process of whipping. If necessary, add another spoonful of cocoa powder. The volume of the cream has doubled. It's time to take it to the cold!
You can decorate the Christmas log in 20 minutes, or in a day. As you see fit.
We get roll. Preparing a dish for serving. Sharp knife.
At the roll, cut the edges diagonally and fit them to the “log”, as if they were cut branches.
We cover all the logs of chocolate and cream. You can use a pastry bag, a bag with a cut off tip, or just a spoon.
Then the flight of fantasy begins. From candies and marmalade, yielding to a creative impulse, we cut out decorative elements (leaves, flowers, etc.). You can use ready-made decorations or chocolates, making them, for example, mushroom caps.
The ends of the cut of the Yule log can also be painted by repeating the pattern of the saw cut of the tree.
With a fork or wooden stick we draw on the “crust” of the furrow. In general, decorating the cake with what we can.
That's it! Do not forget to take a picture of your work of art in order to recall, on occasion, a bright holiday and a merry Christmas Eve.
After all, the Christmas log is as beautiful as it is short-lived. It would seem that you will only cut off a piece and place it on a festive plate, like ...
... someone is sure to eat it already!
Bon appetit and bright Christmas to you!
