Chocolate Buche De Noel (Build Your Own)

Buche de Noel – aka Yule Logs – range from super fancy and imaginatively representative of a log or fashioned to mimic the real thing. We take the latter approach with a swirled ganache frosting that looks like aged bark, figgy pinecones made with cacao nibs and unsweetened chocolate, fresh cranberry and rosemary “holly” and a soft flourless chocolate cake rolled with white chocolate mousse to represent the rings of a tree stump. A little sparkling confectioner’s sugar “snow” sprinkled on top finishes the scene.

Widely regarded as one of the very best bakeries in America, Boston’s iconic Flour Bakery + Cafe is the creation of legendary pastry chef Joanne Chang. Chang spent years honing her craft at some of the country’s top restaurants before opening Flour in Boston’s South End with her husband Christopher Myers in 2000. Her array of wildly delicious sticky buns, cinnamon rolls, cookies, muffins, cakes, pies, and more quickly attracted a loyal following, and the awards and accolades soon began to roll in. Chang was awarded the James Beard Award for Outstanding Baker in 2016, and today there are nine Flour Bakery + Cafe locations across Boston and Cambridge.