Gingerbread Buche de Noel From 'Baking Chez Moi'
"[Photograph: Alan Richardson] Among the plethora of simple, straightforward French desserts that fill the pages of Dorie Greenspan's new Baking Chez Moi, there is a handful of more involved desserts, and those she reimagines in her own way. Her Gingerbread Buche de Noel is both. Yule logs are a staple of the French holiday season, but this version seems quite American to me, with it's cream cheese filling and sweet meringue frosting. A gently spiced, light-as-air sponge cake is rolled around a mixture of cream cheese and butter fragrant with vanilla and cinnamon, sweetened only by the addition of caramel-coated pecans. A simple meringue covers the cake, which gets a finishing sprinkle of more of those pecans. Although there are a few components, none are terribly tricky, and the cake comes together in spurts over the course of an afternoon (though you can make everything except the frosting ahead of time). I wouldn't recommend it for a novice, as there is caramel and hot syrup involved, but it's a very doable, very rewarding project for a semi-experienced baker. Notes: My only quibble is with the frosting. I found that the quantity of cream of tartar gave it a weirdly sour edge, and I desperately wanted a pinch of salt to round out the sweetness. And, heck, while I'm at it, I'd add a touch of salt to the pralined pecans, too. On a happier note, she mentions in the introduction to the recipe, "The filling, packed in a jar, is a great gift on its own, to be spread over toast or on cookies." I second that emotion. Excerpted from BAKING CHEZ MOI, © 2014 by Dorie Greenspan. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved...."