Karen Wright: A festive dessert yule adore

I like to research my baking and see where it originates from and if there are traditions associated with it. Way back in medieval Europe, the yule log was an actual huge log, felled and burned in the hearth during the darkest days of winter. It became a pagan celebration that coincided with the Christian celebration of Christmas.

The French call the dessert Buche de Noel and it is often served with the Christmas meal. Essentially it is a chocolate swiss roll, filled with cream, buttercream or ganache and covered in more ganache. As the ganache sets, if you run the back of a knife or prongs of a fork along it, it does look like a log. A sprinkling of icing sugar and a sprig of holly transforms the Yule Log into a showstopper.

I made my yule a chocolate orange one by adding orange zest and orange extract to the ganache and then decorating the top with candied orange slices and some piped chocolate shapes. Any left-over ganache can be rolled into small balls, dusted with cocoa and you have home-made truffles.

Ganache is easy to make – simply dark chocolate and double cream in equal measures warmed ever so gently to allow the cream to melt the chocolate, then left to cool and thicken. You can add extracts or a splash of booze to give it extra kick. If you make your yule log now, and fill it with buttercream or ganache, it will freeze well too.

Next week I need to make one as a raffle prize for a local virtual bake sale, organised by friends Lyn and Glen for the Macmillan charity, and I have a corporate zoom baking class with Bake with a Legend. So my specialist subject this week is, yes, the yule log!

On Monday I was a guest on Gayle Lofthouse’s show on BBC Radio Leeds, talking about the yule log! The recipe can be found in the Christmas section on my website.