As the holidays arrive, I start to scheme about all the projects I’m planning to tackle. I’m lured by impressive holiday desserts like a towering croquembouche, a highly decorated gingerbread house, and a beautifully rolled and decked out bûche de Noël. But the reality is that in this season, I always have lofty ambitions and significantly less time than I anticipated. Between endless batches of Christmas cookies and prepping for various festivities, my dreams for a holiday showstopper are nearly always crushed.
So this year, I’m doing things differently. Let me introduce you to the Loaf de Noël, the stress-free cousin to the traditional yule log. It has all the trappings of the original: the beloved combination of chocolate cake with a light and creamy filling, an exterior that looks just like tree bark, and festive decorations to match. But it only takes an hour of active time to create, and it’s easy enough for first-timers to pull off without a hitch.
If you haven’t guessed it by the name, I’ve swapped the traditional sponge—which can be finicky and easily overbaked—for a foolproof loaf cake that doesn’t require the nerve-racking step of filling and rolling. In the spirit of ease, I felt it was important to develop a loaf cake that could be whipped up in one bowl without an electric mixer that’s tasty enough to eat on its own. (Don’t worry, there’s a filling, but it’s easily applied.)
Most cake recipes begin by telling you to cream together softened butter and sugar, which creates air bubbles in the cake that expand in the oven as it bakes. But to build this low-key holiday dessert with classic bûche de Noël vibes, I opted to start instead with melted butter, which has two things going for it in this case. Since less air gets trapped in the batter when you use melted butter, the cake has a tighter crumb with a sturdier structure. So it’s easily sliced into thirds lengthwise to showcase layers of white frosting. Another melted butter bonus? It helps both cocoa powder and espresso powder to bloom, which coaxes out a more intensely flavored, chocolaty cake.
To remedy any potential stodginess from the melted butter, I added my personal favorite baking insurance: a cup of sour cream. Sour cream is simply heavy cream that’s been soured with lactic acid bacteria, which is responsible for its signature tangy flavor, as well as thick, creamy consistency. Because sour cream has such a high fat content, it’s an easy way to impart moisture into any baked good, while also tempering sweetness for a more balanced flavor. The final result is a moist and tender cake that can withstand slicing without sloping or mushing together.
Your typical bûche de Noël has a creamy filling plus a covering of a separate batch of chocolate ganache that gives the illusion of bark on a log. In staying with the theme of a low-effort, high-reward cake, this recipe uses just one big batch of buttercream that gets divided in half and flavored two different ways. For the filling, you’ll fold melted white chocolate into some of the buttercream, which helps hold the stability of the cake when sliced. This yule log may not be rolled, but the two-toned interior of chocolate cake and white chocolate filling still brings drama when it’s time to cut a slice. For the exterior, you’ll mix the other half of that same buttercream with melted unsweetened chocolate for a dark brown, woodsy look. Using the tines of a fork, you can make textured lines all over the cake to imitate tree bark.
In previous years when I’ve spent hours toiling over a yule log, I’ve attempted every decoration possible. And while I love the look of miniature meringue mushrooms and buttercream pine cones, it’s hard to beat the appeal of a loaf decked out with faux holly bows made of sugared cranberries and sprigs of rosemary. Better yet, they require a fraction of the effort. Cover the cranberries in simple syrup, roll them in sugar, and arrange them however you like. Top the cake with a dusting of powdered sugar snow, and you’ll be saying bûche de Noël, who? From here on out, I’m a Loaf de Noël girl through and through.
