La bûche de Noël, a French dessert of the Christmas period
A very merry Christmas to you dear readers. Christmas is associated to many different food specialties, I am not telling you anything new there. What is worth looking at is the diversity of the dishes regionally and/or between countries. I love that variety of approaches (although I can tell you, I do not love all of the dishes!). La buche de Noël is a typical French dessert at Christmas time. It is only served on Christmas day but in that period of the year.
The idea of that “bûche de Noël”
A bûche de Noël is a “log”, it represents a section of a tree log. In France it is often based on a rolled biscuit (think jam roly-poly here) and a chocolate or mocha, or chestnut filling and a butter cream icing. There is a myriad of options.
Being in Australia, in the middle of summer, I wanted to make a log dessert but something fruity (for a change). Initially, I had ideas around a mango pavlova rolls, pavlova being the Australian Christmas dessert by excellence! I decided otherwise, though I may do it in the coming weeks.
This log is simply a raspberry bavarois (or bavaroise in French) covered with a blanket of mascarpone & lime icing. it is light in texture, low in sugar and very fruity!
Read the full recipe HERE.
What is a bavarois?
A bavarois is based on a “creme anglaise”, a flavour (I used frozen raspberries here) and some whipped cream and gelatine. The amount of gelatine is just enough to make it hold without being a jelly! it does need at least overnight in the fridge to hold.
I have made the bavarois before as a single dessert, dressed with berries and as little individual potions for a stand up party. It always has that “Waho!” effect, so give it a try, it is well worth it.
To make a log shape I used a flexible cardboard cut to the size of my log cake tin. It does slightly collapse but not too much.
Mascarpone & lime icing
When I say icing, do not imagine tons of sugar, there is only 1/2 cup for 500 g of mascarpone, 100 ml of thickened cream and some lime juice and lots of rind.
Everything goes in the food processor, whizzzzzzzz. This is it, cover the log and decorate. I used more lime rind, some cocoa nibs, mint leaves and a couple of mango flesh jellied stars.
I also added a nut crumble to give that little extra texture.
