Originally a festive season tradition, the more commonly practiced yule log cake is an absolute beauty.
History has it that many European cultures would burn a massive log in their homes in order to help celebrate their given traditions, ward off bad spirits, appease their gods, or for many other reasons, dependent on where their encampments were located.
When dragging a large log, or tree even into your lounge room to burn became not really practical anymore, some chefs in the mod to late 1800s decided to keep the tradition going by making a cake instead.
Thank you, chefs,
200g dark couverture chocolate
50g roasted Hazelbrae hazelnuts
30g hazelnut meal
100g Cacao butter
Method
Prepare the attached chocolate sponge cake in a flat cookie tray, roughly 30cm x 15cm in diameter, being 1 to 2 deep.
Once the cake is cooked and resting, start preparing the nougat.
Take your cacao butter and melt it in the microwave. Melt it down in small hits, stirring after 15-20 second intervals. Cacao butter is hard as a rock, and it will want to carbonate if you don’t help it break up.
So your butter is melted, your nougat is at temperate, and your cake has cooled on your cooling rack. Now, baste, or paint if you like, your butter onto the top of the cake. Think of this as like buttering your toast. You’re applying a protective layer to the fluffy cake goodness.
Now, spread the nougat over the flat, buttered sponge cake. You can make this as thick as you like. The nougat is very intense, so don’t be worried if there is a bit of nougat left over. I threw some in a container and played around with some other cool stuff.
Lay some glad wrap down on your bench, two layers of it. long enough, and wide enough to firstly fit the length of your love cake upon, then secondly to accommodate the girth of the finished log. The girth measurement will be a bit of an estimation, so more is good.
Lay the cake down on the glad wrap, dry side down.
Gradually start to roll the log up, using the glad wrap as a pully of sorts to prevent the cake from breaking as you roll away.
When the glad wrap starts to meet the middle part of the cake, the bit your rolling with, extend and pull on the glad wrap in a motion that continues to roll the cake, until the cake is fully rolled.
Cut one end of your cake on a 20-35 degree angle, around 5 centremetres from one of the ends. Now plug that piece onto the side of the cake, so it appears similar to a branch extension of a tree trunk.
Place the cake onto a cooler rack or your serving platter, then start to prepare the ganache.
When ganache is ready, drizzle the sauce over the centre of your yule log and spread it all over and down the sides using a spatula.
Melt your chocolate over a bain-marie, then spread out onto a peace of grease proof paper, then roll the paper up. The is for the bark for the tree trunk.
Place the cake and your chocolate bark into the fringe, and allow to set for 30 minutes.
Once the ganache and bark are set, apply your bark and some hazelnut in an artistically inspired manner.
I always find garnishes that are trying to replicate naturally occurring objects, needs to be kind of just chucked around here and there.
Nature doesn’t work in straight lines. It just does it thing, so just do your thing, chef. You’re not Picasso. You’re a sugar beast, so act accordingly.
Serve with more hazelnuts, cream, caramel, and probably some more hazelnuts.
Pickle pro-tip- I found so many different variations of this classic is wasn’t funny. I first looked at Chantilly cream filling, then creme patisserie, then anglaise. i found myself running in circles with different possible combinations, until I decided to finally master ‘milky way nougat’ and just use that. There are so many so called ‘traditional’ methods to this dish. Just do what you feel like, share it someone then it will become your ‘traditional dish.
References-
Tales of a Tassie Chef 
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