Būche de Noel

From John Sgammato

This is a simple cake that never fails to garner rave reviews. I have made this every Christmas since I was a seven-year-old, helping my mother.

Ingredients:

• 1 Genoise sheet

• 1 C. Hazelnut Butter Cream

• 2 C. Chocolate cream-cheese frosting

• Powdered sugar, a few holly leaves and a candied cherry for decoration

Time:

About two hours

To prepare:

1. Make the Genoise:

• Whip 6 warmed whole eggs with one cup sugar at high speed for 15 minutes until mixture is pale yellow and tripled in volume.

• Gently fold in 1 C. clarified butter, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1 C. sifted flour.

• Bake at 350 in a greased, floured jelly-roll pan until done (time varies depending on size of pan and thickness of cake).

• As soon as you take it out of the pan, trim off the crusts on all sides, dust with powdered sugar, cover with an impeccably clean linen towel and roll it tightly.

1. Let the rolled cake cool for half an hour while you prepare the buttercream.

2. Unroll the cooled cake, move to a long serving dish, and fill it with hazelnut buttercream.

3. Re-roll the cake and frost it with chocolate cream-cheese frosting

4. Decorate it with holly leaves, cherries, and powdered-sugar snow.