Ingredients
Chocolate Sponge
4 large eggs
100g caster sugar
65g rice flour
40g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
Icing
50g cocoa
250g icing sugar
250g margarine
Method
1) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, and line a swiss roll tin - make sure it is big enough! The only tin I had could have been bigger, and Mary Berry (the queen of baking) suggests 13x9. Line with baking paper.
2) Whisk (definitely with an electric whisk!) the eggs and sugar until the mixture is pale, frothy and leaves "ribbons" - when you lift the whisk up, a trail of the mix should hang from the whisk and leave a trail in the mix to show it is firm enough.
3) Gently fold in rice flour, cocoa powder and baking powder, being careful not to knock any air out but until the dry ingredients are mixed through.
4) Pour mix into the lined tin and spread evenly. Mary Berry suggests 8-10 minutes, but it took mine about 15 minutes to be well risen, firm to the touch and for the sides to have come away from the tin.
5) Once out of the tin comes the VERY IMPORTANT PART. You have to roll this swiss roll whilst it is still warm, otherwise you will never, ever be able to roll it. Start at one end, turning the end in delicately, and using the greaseproof as leverage, firmly roll the sponge up. Leave to cool - not a chance of getting the buttercream to stick to warm sponge!
6) Whilst waiting, make up the buttercream. Which basically entails whisking all the ingredients for the icing together. Might be a good idea to place a tea towel over the bowl otherwise the icing sugar will coat you and your entire kitchen like a snowstorm. And that's about it!
7) When your sponge is cool, carefully unroll and use about half the icing mixture to spread over the unravelled sponge. Once applied, roll this back up. FOR TRADITION: cut off one of the ends at a 45 degree angle and place on a side, to look like another branch of this log.
8) Now spread the remaining icing all over the sponge mix. Drag a fork through the icing to look like bark, and place in the fridge until needed.
9) Just before serving, sprinkle with icing sugar and voila!
Because of the mix and matching of ingredients, this wasn't as stable as a normal yule log. The sponge was perilously crumbly, and the icing wasn't as firm as normal buttercream, so it couldn't necessarily hold everything together as well. However, it still did the drink and was blooming tasty!
Ingredients
1 pack of ready made puff pastry
1 jar of mincemeat
1 egg
Method
1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
2) Cut out the puff pastry into equal rectangles.
3) Place a generous teaspoon or two into the middle of these pastry rectangles.
4) Fold the rectangles over, and crimp the edges with a fork. Glaze each mince pie with beaten egg, slice two slashes into the top of the mince pie, and sprinkle with caster sugar.
5) Bake for 20 minutes, and enjoy hot (not too hot! The mince pie mix with be basically scalding sugar) and cold!
Brilliantly easy, even the most slovenly cook can rustle one up.