What is the history of the Christmas log cake? According to Wikipedia, “A Yule log is a large wooden log which is burned in the hearth as a part of traditional Yule or Christmas celebrations in several European cultures. It can be a part of the Winter Solstice festival or the Twelve Days of Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or Twelfth Night. The expression “Yule log” has also come to refer to log-shaped Christmas cakes, also known as “chocolate logs” or “Bûche de Noël”.
In France, the Bûche de Noël is the requisite dessert at any Christmas dinner. Each year, French pastry cooks of all levels of renown apply themselves in the creation of imaginative, original, and tasty log cakes for the season. One of these premier chef-patissiers in French history is Gaston Lenôtre.
In 1947, Lenôtre opened his first patisserie on the rue Gambetta in Paris. Bounding from one success to the next, the name Lenôtre gradually became synonymous with luxury brand pastries, and his reputation and business grew to international fame.
One of the Lenôtre House traditions each year is collaborating with a famous couturier to create a Bûche de Noël. This year, faithful to its custom, Lenôtre chose Kenzo Takada, the Japanese clothing designer, to produce the log of his dreams… Dream enchanter, daring dream, delicious dream… Working with the Lenôtre team of patissiers, Kenzo Takada imagined a log with purified lines where the bamboo, a veritable decorative centerpiece in Japanese hearths, becomes a culinary showpiece for the celebration of Christmas.
The Lenôtre-Kenzo alliance between Haute Couture and Haute Gastronomy gave rise to a composition of three bamboos. “I wanted to give expression to the inter-relationship between Eastern and Western cultures, and visually recreate the atmosphere of Japanese ceremonies,” said the designer.
The Lenôtre team won’t reveal its recipe (not even to me!) but here are some hints if you want to try making it yourself: the bûche is wrapped in a sweet green almond paste subtly flavored with macha tea, while each bamboo roll encases different savours of chestnut, crystallized orange, and red bean paste. The integral chef d’oeuvre is tied together with a twine in the form of a bellflower which is the seal of the Takada family.
This piece of epicurean refinement is a limited edition and costs a modest (or princely) sum of 98 euros.
Gaston Lenôtre died on January 8, 2009 in his house in Sologne. He is interred in the family vault in the cemetery de la Couture in Normandy, France. The brand Lenôtre is now owned by a private holding. But the tradition of the Lenôtre Bûche de Noël will live on for a long a time to come.
Joyeux Bûche de Noël!
Bises, from Paris with love. Tammy
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What an interesting and well-written article! Merci et joyeux Noel!