Christmas bûche

Preparation time: 90 min

Preheat your Oven at 400 °F

• Biscuit roulade

  In a simple bowl or better in a kitchen aid, whisk the eggs the egg yolks and the sugar (225g) up until you have a ruban.

  Meanwhile, make a smooth meringue with the egg whites and the sugar (60g). Very important to fold here, incorporate the flour and the cacao powder into the ruban egg mix. Then, last but not least, the meringue, same method, with a spatula, gently.

  With an angled spatula, pour all of the mixture on a cooking pan covered with a parchment paper or with a silpat, from .5 to a centimeter thick.

  Off in the oven at 400F from 6-8mins. Pay attention here not to dry the mixture too much.

• Syrup

  Bring everything to a boil then let it cool down a bit before using. Advice of the wise, do it the day before.

• Dark chocolate ganache

  Bring to a boil the corn syrup with the cream and then, in a bowl, pour it all over the chocolate.

  With a whisk, slowly blend all the chocolate to make it melt, once this is done add the room tempered butter. Afterwise, you can continue with a handmixer for a homogeneous and smooth texture.

  Off in the fridge, a good 3 hours if possible.

• French meringue

  Whisk the egg whites altogether 2 or 3mins to tighten them then fold the icing sugar with a rubber spatula, gently.

  All that's left to be done is to pour the mixture in a pastry pouch and create the design you want, cooking pan or silpat on a cooking tray. In the oven at 212F for roughly 2h, it all varies towards the humidity in the spot you're in.

• Montage

  Once the main cookie is tempered cold, put it on another parchment paper so the crusty part, the one that was exposed to the heat while cooking, is faced down. Take away the parchment paper delicately.

  Generously soak the cookie. Then on this surface, spread the ganache on all its surface. The trickiest part, but easy if you do it slowly, fold it all on itself with your fingers in order to make somewhat of a tight boudin.

  Once your chocolate roll is done, cut out the end pieces, but keep them, you will need them later on for decoration.

  With your hand, spread some more ganache all over your roll, a thin layer.

  You can stick the end pieces on the roll to recreate the tree's nodes. This is entirely optional, but if you do make sure they are sticked to it properly.

  Yet again, another uniform layer of chocolate to recover the nodes you made. The goal here is to give it a three dimensional effect, some relief.

  With a fork, pass all over the bûche to make it look even more realistic. All that's left to be done after are the decoration you want to add on top or on the sides.