Yule love it - Vanilla Chocolate Coffee Roulade/Yule Log with Meringue Mushrooms

I know, I know. Terrible title, but I couldn't resist.

Obviously, the festive season is over... but make this anyway. It is SO delish and SO easy. And fun to decorate. Hey, make it the cake for your New Year's party! And if you're not having a party, you can eat the whole thing on your own. Do it.

You'll need
Cake:
- 34 x 24 cm Swiss Roll cake pan
- 3 eggs
- 90g caster sugar, warmed
- 90g self raising flour

Chocolate Butter Cream:
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 60g chocolate, chopped
- 4 tablespoons coffee liqueur (Kahlua works well)
- 120g icing sugar
- 175g softened butter

Adorable Meringue Mushrooms (optional)
- 1 egg white
- 60g caster sugar
- 50g chocolate
- Cocoa powder, to dust

Preheat the oven to 140 degrees Celsius.

You'll be making the meringue mushrooms first to make sure the cake is as fresh as possible. Beat the egg white until soft peaks form, then add the sugar gradually, beating between additions, until the mixture is stiff, shiny and not grainy.

Using a piping bag, pipe onto a lined baking tray little circles with diameter 4cm, each with a little upright stalk. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes, and then turn the oven off and leave the meringues in for another 45 minutes to dry. Pop them onto a wire rack and let them cool.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Once the meringues are cool, make an indentation in the underside of the mushroom caps by carving out with the tip of the knife. Be careful not to go the whole way through.

Melt the chocolate, and coat the undersides of the caps neatly with the chocolate. While the chocolate is still melted, stick the tip of the stalk into the indentation in the cap. Place the mushrooms in the fridge, cap-side-down, so that the chocolate sets and sticks the stalks to the caps. You might need to lean the mushrooms against something if the stalks seem intent on slipping.

When the chocolate has set, if your mushrooms stand up on their own, sit them on a plate and dust over some cocoa powder. If they are a little less steady (like mine were), then placing them in a bowl or ramekin will hold them upright while you dust (as pictured).

Once you've finished dusting them, set them aside (if it's hot like it is in Canberra at the moment, the fridge is probably the best place for them).

To make the cake, beat the eggs and the caster sugar together until thick and pale.

Sift in the flour, and fold together.

Pour the mixture into the greased and lined Swiss Roll pan, and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. It's quite likely you'll need to cover the cake to stop it over-browning. When it's cooked, it will spring back lightly when pressed with a finger. (As you can see, I didn't cover my cake soon enough..)

Turn the cake out onto a wire rack, with a clean tea towel underneath. Gently roll up the cake (from the short side) inside the tea towel, and let it cool like this.

In the mean time, heat the milk in a small pan until tiny bubbles appear around the edge of the pot. Take it off the heat.

Add the chocolate and stir until the chocolate has melted. Then stir in the coffee liqueur. Refrigerate the mixture for half an hour, stirring occasionally.

While the milk mixture is in the fridge, beat the softened butter and icing sugar until well combined & fluffy.

Gradually add the milk mixture to the butter mixture, beating well between additions. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl while doing this, as the beaters will flick up quite a bit of mixture.

Unroll the cake and place it on a chopping board or spare plate. Smooth on a not-too-thick layer of the butter cream, and gently roll up the cake.

Transfer the cake to the serving plate, and use the remaining butter cream to ice it!

Depending on the occasion, decorate it how you like (this is the super fun bit). As I was making it for a Christmas present, I did the icing in random swirls, in the traditional style of a Yule log. I then embellished with a line of grated chocolate around the bottom, my meringue mushrooms, a few raspberries, a dusting of icing sugar and the final festive touch of a big red bow!

But of course, the decoration options are endless. If you've had enough of Christmas for one year, by all means feel free to ditch the icing swirls and go for a sleek and classic Roulade style.