Winter 2021Chocolate Orange Yule Log recipe

By Natasha Brown - owner of Brown’s Cakes

This recipe is based around Mary Berry’s chocolate roulade recipe but is filled with marmalade and smeared with a generous coating of chocolate ganache to give a very light sponge a rich and decadent finish.

The roulade is made without flour (making it accidentally gluten-free) so it’s amazingly light but just needs a little bit of care when mixing the ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

For the ganache:
200g good quality dark chocolate
200ml double cream

For the flour-free sponge:
175g good quality dark chocolate
6 eggs
175g caster sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder

To decorate:
Shredless marmalade
Terry’s chocolate orange

RECIPE

• Make the ganache first; break the chocolate into small pieces in a glass bowl and pour over the cream.
• Microwave for 2 mins, let it stand for a minute and then stir. If the chocolate doesn’t all melt into the cream, keep putting it back in to the microwave for 10 second blasts until it all stirs together. Once it all comes together, give it a good stir then leave to one side.

• For the sponge, grease and line a 33cm x 23cm Swiss roll tin.
• Turn the oven on to 160°C Fan/ 180°C/ gas mark 4.
• Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt it in the microwave using 30 second blasts decreasing to 10 second blasts as it starts to melt, stir the chocolate between each blast.
• Separate the eggs and whip the whites into stiff peaks.
• Whip the egg yolks and caster sugar until they become quite thick.
• Beat the melted chocolate into the whipped egg/sugar mixture.
• Stir in a couple of small spoonfuls of the egg white to loosen the mixture, then gently fold in the egg white (this is where you now need to be careful not to lose all the air that has been beaten in). Use a large metal spoon and fold gently.
• Sieve in the cocoa powder and continue to fold gently.
• Carefully pour the mixture onto the lined Swiss roll tin and spread it to the edges with a spatula, using as few strokes as possible.
• Bake for 18–20 mins. When pressed in the centre, the sponge should indent a little but spring back up. Try not to over bake it as it will be harder to roll later.
• Once baked, leave in the tin to cool.
• Once cool, turn the sponge onto a sheet of baking paper and peel off the paper that’s stuck on the back.
• Apply a very generous layer of marmalade – and do be generous!
• To roll the roulade, cut a line about halfway through the sponge all along the long edge about 1cm in. This helps start the roll. Once you start to roll, it will crack and possibly even break but don’t be put off, even if it falls apart! It’s meant to look like a log and will be covered with ganache so it’s fine. This recipe all about the taste of the fluffy light sponge and decadent chocolate, don’t worry about how it looks.
• Once rolled, cut a quarter of the roll off at an angle then place the bigger piece onto a plate or serving platter and position the smaller piece against it to look like a log.

• To decorate, check the chocolate ganache you made earlier is a good spreading consistency. If it’s too runny, leave it to set for longer; if it’s too thick give it a quick blast in the microwave for 5-10 seconds to soften it.
• Spread the ganache all over the log using a butter knife. Be generous.
• Lay pieces of chocolate orange along the log and sprinkle with icing sugar.
• The plate can be decorated with any decorations you like, I’ll leave you to decide this bit.

You may have noticed by now that I like a bit of alcohol on my cakes, so a lovely alternative to this would be to drizzle the unrolled roulade with Baileys, Tia Maria or Cointreau (any sweet alcohol would be lovely). You can even add a little to the cream when making the chocolate ganache – make the ganache with 250g chocolate and 250g cream so that you have extra and spread some inside the roulade instead of marmalade (keep the marmalade if you are using Cointreau).

Another alternative would be a drizzle of kirsch and spread black cherry jam inside the roulade to give Black Forest flavour. There are lots of yummy possibilities!