Chocolate Roll (Buche-Style)

A flourless chocolate sponge baked in a jelly roll pan, dusted with cocoa and rolled around whipped cream flavored with rum or peppermint. It cracks like tree bark.

From the recipe book of Sandra Mills, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained cook in our family.

Steak and Seafood title card for Chocolate Roll (Buche-Style), photo coming soon
  • Prep 40 min
  • Cook 20 min
  • Chill 1 hr
  • Total 2 hr
  • Yield 1 roll

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Sandra Mills's chocolate roll is a flourless sponge of seven eggs and German sweet chocolate melted with coffee, baked thin in a jelly roll pan. After cooling and chilling, it is dusted with cocoa and rolled around whipped cream flavored with rum or peppermint.

As she says, the cake will crack as it rolls. It is supposed to resemble the bark of a tree, which makes it a natural Yule log.

Ingredients

Cake

  • 7 eggs, separated
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 pound dark sweet chocolate (Baker's German Chocolate)
  • 7 tablespoons brewed coffee
  • Pinch of salt
  • Bitter (unsweetened) cocoa, for dusting

Filling

  • 2 cups heavy whipping cream
  • 2 tablespoons rum or 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Instructions

  1. Beat the yolks. Place the yolks in a small bowl and the whites in a large one. Add the sugar to the yolks and beat until light and fluffy.
  2. Melt the chocolate. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or over low heat. Stir in the coffee and let cool.
  3. Whip the whites. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff.
  4. Fold. Fold the whites, yolks and chocolate together.
  5. Bake. Oil a 10 x 15-inch jelly roll pan and line it with buttered waxed paper. Spread the batter in the pan and bake at 350°F, 15 to 20 minutes in a gas oven or about 12 minutes in an electric oven.
  6. Cool. Cool 5 minutes, cover with a slightly damp cloth and cool completely. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
  7. Fill and roll. Remove the cover, sprinkle the top with cocoa and turn out onto waxed paper. Peel off the paper. Whip the cream with the rum or peppermint and spread it over the cake. Roll up carefully and quickly like a jelly roll.

Tips

  • The cracks are part of the charm; dust with more cocoa or confectioners sugar to finish.

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