Bûche de Noël - GF/DF Christmas log

The French traditional Christmas cake is called "bûche de Noël" which means "Christmas log" and consists in a cake roll often filled with buttercream. My grandmother used to make a really sickly one and as kids we all loved it very much! Not being a big fan of buttercream nowadays (and I can't have real butter anyway!), I tried to make a lighter filling and went for a chestnut mousse instead. But feel free to use a buttercream filling to make it more traditional.

I used Valérie Cupillard's recipe for the sponge cake and it turned out wonderfully light and soft, I would definitely use it again.

I was so focused on eating the cake that I forgot to take a picture of the inside...

Ingredients

For the cake roll
4 eggs separated
100 g of caster sugar
60 g of brown rice flour

For the filling
150 g of chestnut puree
2 egg whites

For the ganache icing
100 g of dark chocolate
10 cl of almond cream

Directions

1/ Separate the eggs. Beat the egg yolks with the caster sugar until the colour gets lighter. Add the rice flour.

Whip the egg whites into firm peaks. Fold in the yolk mix delicately.

Spread on a big rectangular tin or an oven tray lined with greaseproof paper. The mixture should be about 1 cm thick.

2/ Bake for 10 min in the oven preheated on 180°, then lower the temperature to 150°C and leave the cake in 5 more minutes. The top of the cake should be barely golden.

(Mine got golden very quickly so I lowered the temperature after 5 minutes only and covered with foil, then left a bit longer than stated in the oven. So watch carefully!)

3/ Take the cake out of the tin and roll while hot. See on this link how to roll the cake in a moist towel, it will explain much better than what I can do! Leave to cool down.

4/ Make the chestnut mousse: whip the egg whites into firm peaks, fold in the chestnut puree.

When the cake has cooled down, unroll carefully, spread the chestnut mousse all over, and roll again. Place in the fridge for a few hours (overnight if possible).

5/ Make the chocolate ganache: melt the chocolate, add the almond cream and stir well.

Spread the ganache on the log with a spatula once it has cooled down a bit and decorate as you like! (if only I had some icing sugar to dust some snow on it...)

Merry belated Christmas!!!

Christmas almond biscuits

Ok, I'm a bit late for Christmas, but I couldn't find the time to bake these amazing biscuits earlier, and I really missed their orangy taste. Plus I had some organic oranges in the cupboard, so I had to make good use of them :)

I discovered this recipe years ago on Camille's lovely blog and as it's naturally gluten and dairy free, it's still one of my Christmas classics. I was a bit lazy today and skipped the icing (and it's sweet enough anyway!) but here is the complete recipe.

Ingredients

For 30-40 biscuits:
300g of ground almonds
250g of sugar
2 egg whites
zest of 1 organic orange

For the icing:
150g of icing sugar
1 egg white

Directions

1/ Combine ground almonds, sugar and orange zest.

2/ Beat egg whites into soft peaks, fold in the almond mix to get a soft dough. If it is sticky, add a bit of sugar.

3/ Spread the dough with a rolling pin. (It's easier if you place the dough between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper.) It must be about 5 mm thin. Form little stars, moons, etc. with a cookie cutter and put them on a baking tray.

4/ Cook for 10 to 15 min in the oven preheated to 150°C. The biscuits must stay soft and barely golden, they will harden when cooling down.

5/ Prepare the icing: beat the egg white into stiff peaks, fold in the icing sugar. Dip the top of the biscuits in the icing and let them dry out on a baking shelf. They will smooth and dry overnight at room temperature.

GF quinoa and chocolate chip cookies

Ok, ok I know it doesn't sound very Christmasy, but I bought some quinoa flour for the first time (my trip to Peru inspired me and I now want quinoa in everything!) and came across this recipe while searching for ideas on what to do with it. Actually I also found a recipe of pancakes but they were so yummy that I didn't get the chance to take a picture of them before eating them, so I guess I'll have to cook some more before posting!

Anyway these quinoa and chocolate chip cookies are absolutely gorgeous and are the closest thing I found to the wheat cookies I used to bake. I'm already loving quinoa flour.

Ingredients

- 125 g of quinoa flour

- 1 ½ tsp of GF baking powder

- 80 g of sugar (I used half muscovado/half demerara)

- 25 g of almond butter

- 25 g of oil

- 1 egg

- 100 g of dark chocolate chips

Directions

1/ Mix the almond butter and the oil until you get a smooth texture, add the sugar and whip for a bit. Stir in the egg.

2/ In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder and chocolate chips. Stir in the first mix. Leave it aside for 10-15 minutes.

3/ Preheat the oven on 180°C.

4/ On a baking tray covered with greaseproof paper, form little bowls of dough (leave enough space between them, they are going to spread a bit). Flatten them.

5/ Bake for 10 to 15 minutes. They are ready when they get a nice golden colour but are still soft inside. You can keep the cookies for a few days in a tin.

Dark chocolate truffles

It's time to get ready for Christmas :)

And I don't know if it's the same for you, but I can't imagine going through December without a box of biscuits and chocolate in my cupboard. Naturally, it gets more complicated when you have to eat gluten and dairy free, especially when you are used to your Christmas fix full of nasty gluten :-S

But my will of eating sweet things and my desire to enjoy this time of the year being what they are, (and because I have some spare time to bake), I have decided to accept the challenge and find the best gluten and dairy free Christmas recipes.

Let's start with a French classic, chocolate truffles. The recipe comes from La faim des délices.

 

Ingredients

- 300 g of dark chocolate 60-70% cocoa

- 15 g of honey

- 70 g of water (I added a bit of almond milk too, but I would stick to this quantity of liquid next time to get harder truffles, maybe half water/half dairy-free milk)

- 25 g of vegetable oil

- some cocoa powder for coating

Directions

1/ Carefully melt the chocolate in the microwave, give it a stir.

2/ In a bowl, warm up the water, oil and honey. Pour over the melted chocolate and stir until you get a smooth and even texture.

3/ Add anything else you like to personalize the flavour : vanilla, rhum, orange blossom, cinnamon, chestnut puree, bergamot oil... I put half a teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 tbsp of chestnut puree and chose a strong chestnut tree honey.

4/ Leave it to cool down and keep in the fridge for a few hours (or overnight) until the chocolate mix sets.

5/ Prepare a bowl with some cocoa powder in. Scoop a teaspoon of chocolate mix and roll between the palms of your hands until you get a nice round truffle. Coat into cocoa and keep aside. Start again until you run out of the preparation. Have fun and enjoy! ;-)