How to Make Bûche de Noël With Smart Cookie

MasterChef alum, Elise Mayfield — aka Smart Cookie — wants to keep your holiday spirit burning bright with a Christmas cake decorated like a yule log. She'll take you through the recipe step by step, from mixing and baking the batter to rolling and decorating the cake. It's actually a lot easier than you might think.

Get the recipe: Bûche de Noël

Bûche de Noël is a traditional French Christmas cake shaped and decorated to look like a tree log. It's filled and frosted with silky chocolate buttercream. Crunchy meringue mushrooms are the perfect contrast. Chopped pistachios scattered around resemble moss growing on the (chocolate) log.

Smart Cookie's Top Tips:

1. This recipe calls for cake flour. If you don't have cake flour, you can make your own by measuring 1 tablespoon cornstarch into a ½ cup measuring cup. Fill it up the rest of the way with all-purpose flour to make the ½ cup cake flour you need for this recipe. Sift the flour and cornstarch together before using.
2. Add the sugar slowly while beating egg whites until soft peaks form.
3. Be sure to bake the cake batter in a 15x10 jelly roll pan. The cake should be spongy to the touch when it's done.
4. Roll the cake in a towel (sprinkled with powdered sugar) while it's still warm, then let it cool while it's still rolled up.
5. Spread the cake with vanilla buttercream frosting from edge to edge. Roll up and cover with chocolate buttercream frosting.

For extra style points, decorate your yule log with shaved chocolate "bark," chopped pistachio "bark," and meringue mushrooms.

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