Bûche de Noël

The bûche de Noël is a French Christmas cake shaped like a log. Its name means “Christmas log.” It is decorated with bark-like lines drawn in the cream, and its cut ends may be used to represent branches. Some versions are made by rolling a sponge into a spiral, while others contain separate layers inside a mousse or cream. Even when the log shape is the same, the structure of the cross-section differs greatly.

Decorating a Rolled Sponge to Look Like Bark and Branches

For rolled versions, a biscuit or génoise made with whipped eggs is spread thinly on a baking sheet and baked. The sponge must be flexible enough to bend around the cream. Brushing it with syrup or alcohol adds moisture and aroma. The cream or jam spread on the inside forms the spiral, and chilling the cake sets the cream and makes the cake easier to slice.

Buttercream recipes also vary. In one method, hot sugar syrup is added to egg yolks and whipped, and soft butter is mixed in after cooling. The whipped eggs and the fat then form a smooth layer. Coffee or chocolate flavors the cream and also gives the bark its color.

In addition to the cream spread inside the roll, cream is spread on the outside to form the surface of the log. The cream may be spread with a spatula and marked with a fork, or piped with a ridged tip. Both ends can be cut at an angle and attached to the main log to represent branches. Small decorations such as meringue or marzipan mushrooms and powdered-sugar snow help create a forest scene.

A homemade bûche de Noël with Christmas decorations. The chocolate surface has bark-like lines. Photo: Jebulon, 2011-12-24, location unknown. Original image / CC0. Downscaled version from the source; no further processing.

Log-Shaped Cakes with Layers of Mousse and Cream

In mousse versions, fruit confit, cream, biscuit and other components are layered inside an outer mousse, and the cake is chilled so that it holds its shape. A baked base is placed at the bottom. When the cake is cut, it shows the layers and core inside the mousse instead of the spiral of a rolled cake. Versions made with ice cream are frozen so that they hold their shape.

One contemporary example layers a chocolate mousse made with a crème anglaise base, passion fruit confit and pink peppercorn ganache montée, with a chocolate sablé representing the bark. The tartness of the fruit and the crisp bite of the sablé are added to the softness of the mousse and cream. Bûches de Noël may share the same cylindrical shape, but some use a rolled sponge while others are made by setting mousse in a mold.

The Custom of the Hearth Log and Records of Log-Shaped Cakes

In the Provençal Cacho Fio custom, the youngest and the oldest people carry a log from a fruit tree, pour cooked wine over it and put it on the fire. This hearth custom is linked with the cake log in many accounts, but log-shaped cakes were first made at a later time.

In the 19th century, pastry cooks began shaping rolled sponge and cream into logs. One account says that a pastry cook at the Paris Hôtel de Ville made one in 1834. In Lyon, there is another claim that the cake began around 1880. A pastry shop near Lyon also tells the story that Félix Bonnat, a chocolatier from the city, made one covered in ganache and decorated with green leaves and pink flowers. There is also Pierre Lacam’s 1890 account saying that he was inspired by the Parisian pastry cook Antoine Charabot, so the cake cannot be credited to a single inventor.

The “gâteau bûche” in Joseph Favre’s Dictionnaire universel de cuisine pratique (1894–1906) is made by rolling a jam-filled génoise, slicing it into rounds, spreading each slice with mocha or chocolate cream and reassembling the slices into a log. Lacam’s 1900 edition also describes joining about 10 rounds of génoise with mocha or chocolate cream, drawing bark lines with a fine piping tip and making the knots of the branches from a separately baked cake. The method found in the cookbooks of the time differed from today’s method of simply covering a single roll: cut pieces of cake were joined with cream to form the shape of a log.

In Suisse romande, there are interview records of pastry cooks who made the cake from the 1920s. The City of Paris states that Parisian pastry cooks made it widely popular from 1945 onward. This cake, modeled on a log burned at home, has changed in form and structure. Cut pieces of cake were once assembled by pastry cooks, and today’s versions use rolls or mousse. The name still refers to a log, but its ingredients and assembly have changed over time.

Glossary