Hazelnut and Chocolate Bûche de Noël

Just in time for a Christmas dessert

This year I am not feeling particularly festive, my partner is away in the deep south (aka Antarctica) and it is the first Christmas we are not together in several years. However, I am keeping myself busy at work like everyone else in hospitality, December is the busiest month. But, I couldn’t miss sharing a festive recipe with my subscribers, who have allowed me to do this work. This year has has been a pretty hard year for those of us who want a fairer, nicer, greener, and more peaceful world. But for the year’s last issue, I want to leave you feeling inspired instead of angry and sad.

I hope that during 2025 I can write more often and dedicate more time to my substack. Would you want to give a substack subscription as a last-minute Christmas gift?

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I love a buche de noel or a yule log, they are not a thing that I know of in Latin America. This time of the year in Chile is summer so Christmas food is very different from the northern hemisphere. When I lived in France it was one of my favorite discoveries and since living in France I have been baking one every year. The inspiration for this one came from when I worked in Yann Couvreur. In the pastry shop, they had a mini buche which I thought was a brilliant idea and last year I found these silicone moulds and had to go for it!

Caramelised hazelnuts for the praline

Traditionally yule logs 🪵 date from the pre-Christian era to celebrate the winter solstice, people used to burn fruit tree wood and let it burn for three days. The youngest of the family had to turn on the fire with the ashes of last year's wood. With the arrival of stoves and heaters in the XIX century this tradition was replaced with desserts, the origin is not certain but historians agree that the yule log or buche de noël originated in France and now in many parts of the world people enjoy similar desserts resembling a yule log 🪵 (mine doesn’t, but it is delicious 🤤)

Even though mine is slightly different from the traditional ones, because is an entremet, which is a dessert that consists of different layers and textures. Entremets might seem daunting to make, but once you plan what parts of the dessert need to be made first and which ones should be the finish touches, it becomes an easier task to accomplish. Also, everyone always is beyond impressed when you bring to the table an entremet, there are a lot of Ahhh’s and Ohhh’s when you serve someone an entremet… so all the efforts feel necessary.

I think everyone needs a few ambitious (or not-so-ambitious) personal cooking goals to get them through the coldest, darkest months of the year. In my case, as I am trying to make time pass faster, I am aiming to learn more about dishes from home. During lockdown, I became obsessed with sourdough panettone (maybe too much..). Some winter cooking goals are about taking an almost insurmountable-seeming kitchen task and bringing it into focus and clarity, and some are just about cooking the same thing 10 times like a maniac until you feel like you’ve got it down. Maybe your winter cooking goal could be entremets?

Happy Christmas,

Camila x

Some very late recommendations that could be useful for a last-minute Christmas gift (if you are like me and leave everything until the last minute):

I have been reading this zine Tough Cookie, a hedonistic exploration of history, pop culture, literature, and art through sweets. This edition presents a batch of trials and triumphs all in the context of cookies.

I have also been reading a book in Spanish from two talented friends called Resistencia Textil it is a publication that brings together the collective practices of embroidery and textile art as a space for meeting and denouncing in Chile. The objective is to contribute to the understanding and visibility of how textile practices have been used as a means to make sense of the social, environmental, economic and national political changes in the last twenty years, and how these have affected women in their diversity. of class, ethnicity, race, age and disability. So if you are in Chile, get a copy while you can!

As Dieter was going to Antarctica, I gave him an early gift: this Stanley mug, which is perfect for drinking mate in windy conditions. He told me it works perfectly, keeps everything hot, and has space to put the mate straw in. If it works in Antarctica, it is probably good everywhere else, I imagine. 

You could also make someone this recipe or treat them to some chocolate that is good for the planet and farmers, such as Río Nuevo.

Hazelnut and Chocolate Buche de Noel