Soft chocolate cake. Luscious whipped cream. Rich chocolate ganache. This Chocolate Yule Log is easier to make than you realize, and it's gluten-free, too!
Prepare a 15x10x1 inch jelly roll pan. Line it with parchment paper going up the sides of the pan. (I use binder clips to keep mine in place.) Spray the parchment liberally with cooking spray. Set aside.
Use 3 bowls to separate the eggs. Separate the egg over a small storage bowl. The white should drain into the bowl, and the yolk should stay in the egg separator (or shell, if you're not using a separator). If any yolk gets into the white, store it in the refrigerator and get another egg; yolks will prevent the egg whites from beating properly.
Place the yolks in a medium or large mixing bowl, and the whites in a large mixing bowl.
Use a hand mixer or a stand mixer. Beat the 6 egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. Beat in 2 tablespoons of sugar, then beat in another 2 tablespoons, for a total of ¼ cup. (You don't want all the sugar to clump together.)
Beat the egg whites at high speed until stiff peaks form, and the whites are glossy. This may take about 5 minutes. When the egg whites are stiffly beaten, they will maintain their shape. You'll see to the bottom of the bowl, through where the beaters were. Scrape the remaining beaten whites from the beaters and set the bowl aside.
Using the same beaters (no need to clean), beat the egg yolks at high speed. Add the remaining ½ cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time (for a total of 4 additions). Beat until very thick. This can take up to 5 minutes. The yellowish egg yolks will have lightened in color; if you drip the beaten yolks from the mixer onto the rest, they will maintain their shape a little, rather than melt/sink back into the yolk mixture.
On low speed, beat in the cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt. (Cocoa powder will puff out and make a mess sometimes!) Beat until smooth.
Use a rubber spatula to fold the cocoa mixture into the egg whites until no egg whites are visible. To do this, sink the blade part of the spatula down through the center of the bowl, to the bottom. Turn the spatula so that it scrapes up the side of the bowl, bringing the bottom and sides of the mixture to the top. Rotate the bowl by 90 degrees, and repeat.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Try to pour it along the entire pan, rather than centering it all in the middle. Gently spread the batter to the edges. Although the batter will rise upward, it will not expand sideways to fill in the corners of the pan.
Bake in a 375F oven for around 15 minutes, until the surface springs back if you press on it. (A toothpick will also come out clean, but press on the cake first.) Prepare your tea towel for rolling while the cake bakes. When you remove the cake from the oven, immediately turn out onto your prepared tea towel.
Spread out a clean tea towel (free of lint) on your counter; this towel should be larger than your jelly roll pan. If you don't have a lint-free towel, you can use parchment paper or waxed paper in a pinch.
Use a sieve to dust the surface of the tea towel liberally with powdered sugar.
Once the cake is done, immediately invert the pan onto your prepared tea towel. Carefully peel back the paper from the cake; use a rubber spatula if necessary to scrape the cake down off of the cake in spots where it sticks.
Once you have the paper off of the cake, roll the cake up from the short end, including the tea towel in the center to keep the layers separate. The seam of the cake should be on bottom. Place on a cooling rack and cool completely (about an hour) before assembling.
30 minutes before you plan to assemble the yule log, prepare the chocolate ganache.
Place 1 cup (6 ounces) chocolate chips or chopped chocolate in a heat-safe bowl.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring the ¾ cup (6 ounces) heavy cream just to a boil. (I swirl the pan a few times to make sure it's heating evenly and not sticking.) Remove from heat.
Immediately pour half of the heated cream onto the chocolate. Let it rest for 30 seconds to soften. Stir in small circles or spirals, starting at the center of the bowl, spiraling out toward the edge.
Stir in that way until the chocolate and cream are combined, and then add the remaining hot cream. Let it rest again for 30 seconds, and repeat the process of stirring/spiraling out from the center to the outsides of the bowl. Stir only as much as necessary.
Set the ganache aside to let it cool and thicken for the remaining 20 minutes while the cake cools.
Place 1 ¼ cups (10 ounces) heavy cream in a large mixing bowl. (Be prepared; cream splatters everywhere!) Add the ¼ cup powdered sugar.
With an electric mixer, start mixing the cream on low to get it foamy. Turn the speed up to high speed and whip the cream to stiff peaks. You can stop and check the consistency as often as you'd like.
Like with the egg whites, the stiff peaks won't flop over. You'll see an obvious trail where the beaters were. When you remove the beaters from the whipped cream, there will be a hole or gap where they were.
Place the chocolate roll on your work surface and unroll it.
Dollop the whipped cream along the surface of the cake. Spread it out into the short edge where you started the roll (which will become the center). Leave a ½ inch gap along the sides of the roll, and a 1 inch gap along the other short end. The cream will spread into those gaps as you roll the cake.
Roll the cake back up. (But don't include the tea towel in it this time!) Roll it relatively tightly. Some cream will squish out of the sides and end of the cake roll; this is normal and okay. The seam of the cake should be on bottom again.
Using a serrated knife and gentle pressure, saw off a small section of the cake off on a diagonal. Transfer the main log to a serving platter, and position the smaller branch alongside it as if it's growing from the main log. Take your time to consider the branch from all angles, and reposition it if you'd like.
Use a spoon to drizzle the chocolate ganache along the top of the cake. It will slowly drape along the sides. Drizzle more chocolate on top of the ganache where it ends, so it continues to drape down the sides of the cake.
I use a spoon and go slowly because it gives me more control of where the chocolate flows. If you pour too much at once, it all drains onto the serving platter, and you have to scoop it up later.
Decide if you want to cover the swirled ends of the cake, or if you want to leave the whipped cream showing. Before covering the whipped cream, swipe up any excess that peeks beyond the edges of the sponge cake before coating it. Then, drizzle the chocolate over the ends the same way that you did with the sides of the cake.
Take a look around the cake from all angles, seeing if you need to do any chocolate touch-ups. Fix it as needed.
Use a clean rubber spatula, or a dampened paper towel, to scrape excess chocolate ganache from the serving platter to pretty it up.
Drag the tines of a fork gently along the log to make the chocolate look like ridges of bark. They don't have to be perfectly straight; tree bark never is. Don't forget to do the short branch as well. I prefer to leave the ends as they are.
Refrigerate the cake until ready to serve.
Remove the cake from the refrigerator. Use a sieve to dust the entire cake, and the serving platter, with powdered sugar to look like a dusting of snow (and cover up any imperfections in the chocolate).
You can use a butter knife to cut this cake. Saw back and forth along it gently, without much pressure, until you cut through the cake. Don't press; it'll mess up the spiral.
Store remaining cake in a sealed container in the refrigerator. The powdered sugar will absorb moisture and resemble dew instead of snow, but the cake will still taste good after several days.
Why a gluten-free cake? I found that it rolled more nicely than a cake with flour.
If you find that the cake isn't actually done (gasp!), keep the parchment on it. Slide a large cutting board underneath the tea towel, and invert the entire thing back into the jelly roll pan. Remove the tea towel and bake the cake until it's done. The cake won't be pretty, but it won't be a loss! Meanwhile, prepare the used (or a new) tea towel again.
You don't want to overbeat the cream, or it will turn to butter; however, you need the cream to be stiffly beaten, or your roll won't hold its shape.
While you can fill this cake with a different kind of filling, I prefer the simplicity of lightly sweetened whipped cream.
Original cake inspiration from Mary Berry. I liked the simple whipped cream for the swirl, but preferred it lightly sweetened. I liked the simple ganache for the yule log's bark but cut back on the quantity, and opted to drizzle ganache instead of pipe it.
Gluten-free chocolate cake adapted slightly from the Yule Log recipe at Christina's Cucina.
Method for making chocolate ganache from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.
Calorie count calculated in MyNetDiary and is an estimate only. Yours will vary.