This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.
What is a French Yule Log? In France, you can buy two kinds of Yule log, either the Genoise and Buttercream type or what is more commonly purchased which is a frozen Yule Log very reminiscent of an ice cream cake, only often it’s not made of ice cream but rather frozen mousse of some sort. In French this is called an entremets which is sometimes loosely translated in English as simply a cream dessert. This also means that this recipe is not holiday-specific, it is also just a scrumptious dessert recipe.
I was worried when I found out that its 18 pages long!!! I read the instructions again and again. I think it was more than 10 times or something to understand. Seriously before, I joined DB, I never make such desserts before. Every challenge in DB, were my first time.
There is a challenge rule. You must make all 6 of these elements for the log:
1) Dacquoise Biscuit
2) Mousse
3) Ganache Insert
4) Praline (Crisp) Insert
5) Creme Brulee Insert
6) Icing
With such a lengthy instructions, oh boy, its really time consuming and you will have a very messing kitchen! It took me 3 nights to finish the log. I started with Vanilla Creme Brulee and Praline Feuillete Chocolate Crisp. 2nd night, I made the Cinnamon-Milk Ganache and Vanilla Mousse. 3rd night, were Daquoise Almond Biscuit and Dark Chocolate Icing. I was very happy with the 5 elements that I made but I was very disappointed with my vanilla mousse. It was very watery. I never made mousse before, so I do not know how it will be like. I wanted to make a new one the next night but I was short of heavy cream and do not want to waste the one I made so I put the mousse in the freezer, hoping it will be thicken but not. I was hard but it melt very fast. The only reason, I can think of is that I did not put the right amount of agar-agar in the mousse.
So is here how my french yule log looks like:
What is a French Yule Log? In France, you can buy two kinds of Yule log, either the Genoise and Buttercream type or what is more commonly purchased which is a frozen Yule Log very reminiscent of an ice cream cake, only often it’s not made of ice cream but rather frozen mousse of some sort. In French this is called an entremets which is sometimes loosely translated in English as simply a cream dessert. This also means that this recipe is not holiday-specific, it is also just a scrumptious dessert recipe.
I was worried when I found out that its 18 pages long!!! I read the instructions again and again. I think it was more than 10 times or something to understand. Seriously before, I joined DB, I never make such desserts before. Every challenge in DB, were my first time.
There is a challenge rule. You must make all 6 of these elements for the log:
1) Dacquoise Biscuit
2) Mousse
3) Ganache Insert
4) Praline (Crisp) Insert
5) Creme Brulee Insert
6) Icing
With such a lengthy instructions, oh boy, its really time consuming and you will have a very messing kitchen! It took me 3 nights to finish the log. I started with Vanilla Creme Brulee and Praline Feuillete Chocolate Crisp. 2nd night, I made the Cinnamon-Milk Ganache and Vanilla Mousse. 3rd night, were Daquoise Almond Biscuit and Dark Chocolate Icing. I was very happy with the 5 elements that I made but I was very disappointed with my vanilla mousse. It was very watery. I never made mousse before, so I do not know how it will be like. I wanted to make a new one the next night but I was short of heavy cream and do not want to waste the one I made so I put the mousse in the freezer, hoping it will be thicken but not. I was hard but it melt very fast. The only reason, I can think of is that I did not put the right amount of agar-agar in the mousse.
So is here how my french yule log looks like:
I was quite disappointed with my french yule log, it could be better. My mousse was watery and melt so fast. The very last part, I overlooked (once you asembled the log, freeze it before putting the icing) at the last instructions for the icing, I poured the icing first. Although, it took me 3 days to finish this yule log, I will definitely make this french yule log again.
Since it is a very long instructions, Hilda had create a link for us. You can check out for the recipe here (Daring Bakers 2008 December Recipe.doc)!!!! Thanks Hilda.
You may also like to check out the rest of DB's members website here!
Again, Thank you Hilda and Blueberry and Marion for this great challenge! :)
