Argentine Yule Log

A cross-section of the Yule log

Dear readers,

Happy New Year! I apologise for posting this after Christmas, however, I know that there are a few people who celebrate Christmas later than others, for one reason or another. Also, my friends and I like to share a "Fake Christmas" some time early in the New Year. Therefore, this recipe may still be useful at this time of year!

When I was in Argentina, I really wanted to share something English at Christmas, and combine both the English and Argentine cultures in one dessert.

The outside of the Yule log

The idea came into my head... why not make a chocolate Yule log, but use dulce de leche as the filling in order to make it Argentine?!

So, my boyfriend and I went ahead and baked a Yule log. We really struggled to find cocoa in the shops of Buenos Aires, and so decided to keep the sponge coffee flavoured. This worked well because the sickly-sweet dulce de leche was "calmed down" (slightly) by the bitterness of the coffee. We also added coffee to the icing to make it truly mocha.

We used a standard Yule log recipe but substituted the cocoa in the sponge for some instant coffee, and used the filling of dulce de leche and a mocha butter icing. We didn't have the best cooking tray for the sponge so it ended up slightly squidgy and slightly burnt, too. Fortunately, although it sank a little, the dulce de leche covered up any burnt flavours and we didn't receive any complaints!

Dulce de leche oozing out of a slice of the Yule log

We served this at the big dinner on Christmas Eve (Christmas is mainly celebrated on Christmas Eve in Argentina) and it was a great success! It was so well received that the family demanded more for the larger celebrations for New Year. We decided to create a double-sized Yule log (AKA a Yule tree) for the New Year Celebrations. I hope you all enjoyed the holidays!