I have always wanted to make a bouche de noel and every christmas my mom and I agree to make one, and then chicken out. so this year I decided I would give it a go. I think I did ok. I made a few mistakes that I will share with you. First, it really helps to watch a few videos (youtube has many). I watched several. I chose to use a recipe from marthastewart.com compliments of Johnny Iuzzini from Jean Georges in NY. http://www.marthastewart.com/recipes/buche-de-noel
I changed it a little..I did not make the chestnut cream filling, I used chocolate mousse instead. Johnny’s genoise recipe is great and easy to roll, the ganache is great too. You might want to double the ganache recipe, it makes it easier to have extra. OK, so here is where I screwed up, my mousse was too soft and oozed out a bit, next time I will pop it in the freezer to really thicken it. Also, after filling and rolling do the following :
1) pop it in the FREEZER for 1 hour.
2) then slice the ends…
3) pour ganache over cake-roll over a sheet pan with rack,
4) adhere stump ends
5) more ganache over cake-roll over a sheet pan with rack,
5) then decorate on serving platter with meringue mushrooms.
I also did not use his swiss meringue recipe. I whipped up 6 egg whites in an electric mixer (whisk attachment!!) added 1 cup sugar and about 4 tbls of meringue powder…whipped until stiff peaks form. Use a piping bag and tip #12 to make mushroom caps and stems. Bake on parchment at 200 for 1 hour.
Happy Holidays!!
buttery goodness 