Chocolate & Coffee Christmas Log

 Chocolate & Coffee Christmas Log

Are you bored of eating prepacked Christmas Log desserts? Desserts that are far too heavy to have after your traditional Christmas lunch with the family?

This Christmas log would be a perfect option! A tasteful chocolate flavoured sponge base covered in delicious coffee whipped cream. Let’s get to work!!

Index:

1. Introduction
2. Ingredients
3. Preparation
4. Decorations
5. Suggestions

1. INTRODUCTION

The Christmas Log is a traditional French Christmas dessert, which takes the form of a log of wood, considered as a symbol of luck, and brought in numerous Northern European countries. According to the legend, on Christmas Eve, the head of the family would burn a log of wood in their fireplace which would continue to burn slowly until the epiphany. The remaining stumps used to be kept as a symbol of good luck. During the mid-1900s, the French transformed this symbol into a dessert and that is how the traditional Christmas log was born!

Like in any other classic recipe, one can find various shapes and forms of a Christmas log; those formed in a simple single branch; those which are more complex in its composition and which includes several branches; multiple decoration options as well as a variation of ingredients. The version we are presenting to you today is the coffee and chocolate flavoured one.

It is a fast and simple process as all it needs is a few minutes to prepare and assemble. The sponge can be prepared in a short time, and once this cools down, all that is left is to add the filling, roll it and decorate it. The filling is made of coffee cream and dark melted chocolate, a combination of two very tasty flavours

The secret to obtain a perfectly formed Christmas log is to let it rest for a while before it is decorated. Leaving the Christmas log to rest will allow the cream filling to harden and it makes it easier to cut nice and sizeable portions. This is a perfect dessert to serve during the Christmas day lunch, on Christmas eve, on New Year’s Day or even to be given as a gift! This log is a homemade easy recipe that will surely be a winner for coffee lovers.

Follow this recipe to make the perfect Christmas log, both in taste and form.

• Preparation: 15 minutes
• Cooking time: 8 minutes
• Cooling time: 30 minutes
• Difficulty: Very low
• Serves: 8 persons
• Cost: Economical

2. INGREDIENTS

For the base – chocolate sponge cake

• 4 eggs
• 130gr castor sugar
• 50gr baking flour
• 50gr dark chocolate powder
• 1 packet of powdered yeast

For the coffee cream

• 250gr mascarpone cheese
• 1 espresso sized cup of coffee
• 1 teaspoon of ground coffee Buongiorno Venezia

To decorate

• 250gr of chocolate to melt – 70% cacao
• 200ml cream

3. PREPARATION

• Start with the base ingredients by mixing together the 4 eggs and the castor sugar until you achieve a smooth and foamy result, without any lumps. The result should look like a flat, light, yellow cream.
• At this stage add the baking flour, the yeast, and the chocolate powder. Fold all ingredients slowly by using a wooden spoon. When adding the flour and the yeast, mix by whisking the spoon from the bottom of the bowl to the top, to avoid the cream to go flat and to obtain a soft and creamy texture.

• Once you obtain the right consistency, put the mixture in a buttered and slightly floured dish. Make sure you use a rectangular dish. Bake at 160°C in a fan oven, or at 180°C in a static oven for 10-12 minutes.
• Prepare a clean cloth so you can turn the cooked sponge cake on it whilst this is still hot. Carefully remove the baking paper without breaking it. Cover and leave to rest for a while.
• To prepare the coffee cream, make an espresso coffee using either a Moka coffee pot or a machine for pods or capsules. In a bowl, mash the mascarpone cheese with a fork, and then add the espresso coffee, followed by a tablespoon of ground coffee. Mix all the ingredients together and whisk until you get a smooth mixture.
• Once the coffee cream is ready, grab the cooled sponge base and spread the coffee cream on the surface of the base. Roll the base carefully, starting from the end of one side. Cover and leave to rest for half an hour in the fridge for it to harden and to be easier to decorate.

4. DECORATION

Decorate the Christmas log, which is surely the most enjoyable part of the whole process. You could get your children involved in the decoration process, to keep them busy and to increase their excitement for the day you get to taste the log.

The classical way of decorating the log is to cover it in melted milk or dark chocolate. Use a fork to make it look like a real tree log. Preparing the chocolate is very simple since all you would need is 200ml of cream and 250gr of melting chocolate in the form of chocolate bars or chocolate chips. If the chocolate is a bar, break into small pieces or grate it so it will melt once heated. Heat the cream without boiling it. We recommend using cream with a fat mass of at least 32%. Once it reaches the right temperature, pour the cream over the chocolate.

Mix delicately, but with enough speed to melt the chocolate uniformly. Continue until all the chocolate has melted and is mixed completely with the cream. The mixture should have a shiny and soft liquid consistency. The longer you leave it to cool down, the creamier it will become. You can use a strainer to add some sour chocolate powder to the chocolate cream, or you could also create different colour contrasts using different consistencies of chocolate powders.

Alternatively, you could finish off by simply straining some icing sugar over the covered Christmas Log to get a snowy look. Another idea is to create bows of chocolate with the cream and placing a coffee bean in the middle of the bow, which will give an indication of the flavours used to make the Christmas log.

You can decorate more by adding ready-made chocolate straws on top of the Christmas Log. These can also be made from scratch by melting 250gr of melting chocolate. Once melted, pour the chocolate onto a baking paper and form a thin layer. After it cools, break the thin layer of chocolate into small straws using a knife or break randomly using your fingers. Throw on top of the Christmas log or place the straws randomly next to each other to create a tree log effect.

Once ready place on the fireplace or next to some festive decorations.

5. SUGGESTIONS

For this Christmas recipe we recommend using Sublime Blu Buongiorno Coffee as it has a intense yet balanced aroma, due to its mixed composition of 50% Robusta and 50% Arabica coffee beans.

Sublime Blu is available in various combinations including 100% degradable pods, in capsules for Lavazza A Modo Mio, Nespresso (even in degradable version), Dolce Gusto and Lavazza Point. For traditional coffee lovers, it is possible to obtain the mixture for the Moka Coffee pot in a packet of 250gr Venezia ground coffee.

If you enjoyed making this recipe, we suggest that you follow our future blogs where we will be sharing new and exciting recipes using our coffee products.

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