A Chocolate And Coffee Swiss Roll

This Swiss roll, which is made with a chocolate batter, filled with a coffee buttercream and then topped with a chocolate ganache, would make a really nice Christmas dessert - and it is easily made both gluten- and dairy free.

It could also be made into a Yule log - Bûche de Noël - which is a traditional Christmas dessert in France. The original Yule log, as in not the dessert, is a pagan tradition where a large log is burned in the fireplace as a part of Christmas celebrations. This baked log has probably some ties to the original Christmas log tradition. There is a short story behind the invention of the baked log, it is said that Napoleon forbid the use of fireplaces in Paris and thus the bakers of Paris made a baked log for the people so that they could have some kind of a log for the celebration of Christmas.

If you want this to be a log, you will need to decorate it with some chocolate buttercream, which will resemble tree bark, and then some marzipan mushrooms for example. A more simple way of decorating would be just adding the chocolate ganache on top and then sifting some confectioner’s sugar on top - it looks like snow, so it suits a Christmas dinner very well and you will not have to make the more elaborate and time consuming log decoration.

A gluten-free chocolate and coffee roll

For a dairy free version replace the butter with some dairy free margarine like earth balance for example, it works just as well as butter. You can use soy or almond cream for the cream in the ganache. I used one raw egg yolk in the filling, leave it out if there are children eating or people that have immune problems.

Make sure that all of your ingredients are room temperature before starting.

For a detailed explanation on how to roll the Swiss roll look at this post, there are some tricks to it which will make the whole process easier.

The roll

-4 eggs

-3/4 or 1 1/2 dl cup caster sugar

-3/4 cup or 1 1/2 dl flour, use half potato flour and half cocoa powder

- 1 tsp baking powder

Preheat an oven to 200 C or 400 F.

Beat the eggs and sugar until they are light and pale. Measure the potato flour, cocoa powder and baking powder, mix them together and sift them into the eggs and sugar, fold them in very gently.

Pour the batter into a jelly roll pan lined with baking paper.

Bake the roll for approximately 10 minutes, keep an eye on it so that it does not burn, it bakes quite fast.

Make the filling while the roll bakes.

The filling

-100 grams or 3,5 ounces butter which should be room temperature

-1 cup or 2,5 dl confectioner’s sugar

-1 egg yolk

-2-3 tbls strong coffee

Whip everything together for a smooth buttercream.

Let the roll cool before spreading the buttercream on it.

Then roll it according to these directions.

Make the ganache.

The Ganache

-1/2 cup or 1 dl cream, use almond or soy cream for a dairy free ganache

-200 grams or 7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, use dairy free chocolate for a dairy free ganache

-3 tbls strong coffee

-1/2 cup or 1 dl confectioner’s sugar

Heat the cream on medium heat until it is warmed, but not boiling.

Take the saucepan off the heat and add the chopped chocolate into it, let the chocolate melt into it and then whisk the confectioner’s sugar and coffee into it.

Spread the ganache on top off the roll after you have rolled it and the ganache has cooled a bit.

Sift some confectioner’s sugar on top of the roll as a decoration and add maybe some fruit, berries, or some marzipan decorations.

I am going to try making some Christmas bread and I am not sure how it is going to go - I just absolutely adore Christmas bread, it has some dark syrup, spices and half wheat flour and half rye flour, the taste is so delicious, and I am nervous about it working as gluten-free bread. I would really like to have some spicy bread with norwegian whey cheese called brunost on Christmas morning.

I can buy some gluten-free Christmas bread from here, but it does not taste all that good and actually it does not taste all that much like real Christmas bread.

Maybe some quinoa flour fermented with some buckwheat flour will work, I am hoping anyway; I will post the recipe it works out.

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