Everyone knows that as Hanukkah approaches in Israel, bakeries slowly fill up with doughnuts. In Paris, the streets are slowly being decorated with large and small fir trees, and at the same time the store windows are adorned with Christmas decorations. This custom does not spare patisserie shops, which decorate their windows in order to attract as many customers as possible. However, in addition to the traditional holiday decorations, the patisserie will also showcase the Bouche de Noel.
So what exactly is a Bosch de Noel?
In French, Bûche de Noël is a Christmas tree.
A boîte de Noël is a cake traditionally served at Christmas, especially in France, which in its traditional shape resembles a tree trunk. This shape is intended to recall the new tree trunks that were used in the past to heat houses. The origin of the cake is unknown, but there is historical documentation of its preparation from the mid-19th century.
The cake looks very impressive and difficult to make, but in fact it is a simple roulade with vanilla/chocolate/chestnut cream, cut diagonally at the edges and coated with chocolate ganache.
The cake is usually decorated with a variety of cookies, powdered sugar, or other winter decorations and motifs. But the French, like the French, make every cake a work of art. With the development of patisserie in recent years and Instagram culture, the boîte de Noël has become a real attraction.
What was once a humble traditional cake has, in recent years, become an extravagant and creative display of shapes, colors, textures, flavors, and lots of decorations. In light of the desire to be creative and different from others, pastry chefs sometimes abandon the original shape of the bush and sail with the similarity to places that have a tenuous connection to a tree trunk.
In each such creation, the pastry chefs try to combine a variety of working techniques, layers, and textures. Each renowned pastry chef publishes a special catalog, which can be found on the website, or in the patisserie, from which each family chooses which bush will sweeten the holiday eve, the evening when Papa Noel comes to visit.
Since the bouch is eaten as a dessert after the holiday meal, chefs take this into account and therefore prepare the bouch as something lighter and sometimes incorporate fruits that add sourness and freshness. The chefs use seasonal ingredients so that the bouch will be unique and typical of the season, you can find bouch with chestnut mousse, bouch with raspberries and more.
The chefs start thinking and planning the cake several months in advance, and the climax comes with a festive launch that invites the best journalists to cover the new collection for that year. The journalist can find himself running around and attending up to 5 launches a day. There is no doubt that his job is hard . Every year the collection changes and no cake is similar to the previous one.
Bouches start selling about two weeks before Christmas and continue until a few days into early January. Immediately after that, the French kings cake, La Galette Rois, begins to take center stage, which will be discussed in a separate article. Here is a video from a few years ago that shows us different types of Bouches de Noel:
Pierre Herma prepares a fairy-tale Bouche de Noel
At Pierre, every cake deserves the respect it deserves, and every dessert has its own unique box. In addition, the storefront takes on a festive holiday theme based on the bush he sells each year. This year, Pierre has created 6 bushels in different flavors, including a limited edition chocolate bushel with cassis, a chocolate praline bushel, and more.
And by the way, if you want to learn how to make a Bouche de Noel, here is a video in which Pierre Herme, himself, explains to us how to make this cake (for my part). French Only unfortunately):
And those of us who don't understand French very well and wouldn't mind that the recipe for Bouche de Noel is presented by an American woman and not a French chef are welcome to take a look at this video:
So who's taking the challenge and going to make him a boîte de Noël for fun?
We would love to see photos on our page or in the group- Paris and Ile de France Travel Tips.
Happy holiday to all who celebrate.
Lovely! My mother used to make roulades like this, not in the context of the holiday, I think I'll try it too. Thanks for a stunning and appetizing post!
What fun, we'd love to see pictures 🙂