The Christmas holidays are a great opportunity to try out new recipes, rich in flavour and, if we’re lucky, not completely without nutritional value. Traditional Yule logs made of pastry or ice cream at the end of a big festive meal can often lead to nausea, or at the very least just be heavy and difficult to digest. Transforming holiday classics that we know and love and playing with new flavours can be a great source of exploration. This festive dessert marries the sweetness of chestnuts with the intensity of dark chocolate, the delicate flavour of pears, the creaminess of the oleaginous puree and the crunchiness of a delicious chestnut Sablé and praline. We hope you have fun with this recipe and, above all, enjoy exploring these holiday flavours!
Ganache
250g chestnut cream (make sure to choose with as little sugar as possible)
150 - 200g cooked butternut squash (it is better to cook and cool it the day before preparing the Christmas Log Cake)
200g 70 or 80% dark chocolate
70g almond puree (in this case, crunchy whole almond puree)
30g hazelnut puree
4 large pears
1 vanilla pod
Praline for decoration
Chestnut Sablé
150g chestnut flour
60g whole cane sugar
80g white almond puree
1 egg
1 sachet of baking powder
Step 1
Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease a rectangular cake tin with coconut oil (approx. 25x9cm).
Step 2
Add the chocolate to a bowl and melt it in a double boiler.
Step 3
Once melted, mix the chocolate with the chestnut cream, the cooked butternut squash and the nut purees. Although the butternut squash doesn't stand out very strongly taste-wise, it brings an interesting texture – like a ganache: creamy and delicious.
Step 4
Peel the pears, chop them into bite-sized pieces and mix with the fresh vanilla from your vanilla pods.
Step 5
Add a good layer of your ganache to the prepared cake tin, then add another layer with the vanilla pear mixture on top, and finally cover your layers entirely with your remaining ganache.
Step 6
Mix all the ingredients for the chestnut Sablé in a bowl, knead well and form a ball.
Step 7
Roll out the dough on a floured work surface to the size of the cake tin, and approx. 1cm thick.
Step 8
Now place the rolled out chestnut Sablé dough into your cake tin as well, entirely covering the top layer of ganache.
Step 9
Place the cake tin in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes.
Step 10
Once out of the oven, leave your cake to cool at room temperature, outside, or even in the fridge, for approx. 24 hours.
To serve
Remove your Christmas Log Cake from the cake tin and place it on a wooden platter, previously sprinkled with powdered sugar. Now sprinkle some praline over the cake and decorate around it with small fir trees, snowflakes...
Enjoy!
This Christmas Log is gluten-free and low in FODMAPs – in other words, it’s suitable for almost everyone.
For a vegan and raw food version, in addition to gluten-free and low fodmap value: make the whole recipe without the chestnut Sablé, and therefore don't put it in the oven either (the Sablé is the only thing that needs to be baked). The ganache and pears make an excellent Christmas Log by themselves!
If you are allergic to oilseeds, you can replace them with coconut oil. This recipe can also be made with other fruits according to your personal preference.
Original Language: French
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