This seemingly simple cake was quite a project! Thanks to Tuesdays with Dorie, I pushed myself to make this recipe (which I initially overlooked immediately after seeing it in Baking Chez Moi because it looked too complicated for me). This cake turned out to be more fun to make than I thought! There were 4 steps to this cake: 1) Praline; 2) Cake; 3) Filling; and 4) Frosting.
Step 1: Make Praline. I like eating candied nuts, but I had never made my own. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Just heat up your sugar/water, and add in the nuts!
These smelled so good as I spread them on the silicone mat.
So I chopped them into different sizes, trying my best not to eat them all before I got to use them in the cake. Pralines, check!
Step 2: The cake. This cake was the most intimidating part for me. It’s a sponge cake that’s rolled up. Two things scared me: 1) I was afraid that I would not be able to turn the cake out nicely without it tearing in half; and 2) I was afraid that the cake would crack as I rolled it. Thankfully neither happened.
Whipping the eggs was fun to watch. It’s amazing how much the size of the batter increased.
This was the prep for the first scary task…
I was so nervous about turning the cake out, I forgot to take a picture of the cake when it came out of the oven. It was a beautiful sponge cake with lots of holes on top! I was so relieved when the cake came out in one piece.
I rolled the cake very carefully when it was still hot. Cake, check.
Step 3: Filling. The filling was very quick to make. Just dump everything into the mixer!
Can’t get any easier than this! Filling, check.
Time to unroll the cake and spread on the filling!
…then time to roll it back up…
Step 4: Frosting. It was pretty much an Italian meringue. Frosting, check.
There were guests over for dinner this night so before this went on the dining table, I dressed it up with more pralines.
Gingerbread Buch de Noel!
Gingerbread Buche de Noel recipe on page 86 of Baking Chez Moi.
