rofl! No kidding, I had tears in my eyes! I couldn't believe he pulled it off. It brought up every PTSD cooking crisis I ever had and turned it into gold 🤣
A couple of tips from a professional baker about this. :) (1) When rolling, no part of the cake should fold back on itself, including the beginning. Place the cake so that there's maybe 1 1/2" of towel on the edge closest to you, then fold it over the edge of the cake *before* you begin rolling. That way, when you roll the cake doesn't fold over and touch itself. (2) That roll should just sit on the counter to cool after rolling it, it should NOT* go in the fridge. Not only does a fridge dry cake it, it makes it too stiff to unroll and fill. *Absolutely do NOT refrigerate cake, ever. A refrigerator both dries out and chills. You *can* freeze it though, preferably right after baking before completely cooling. If you're making a cake that requires refrigeration for safety because of the filling, wait to apply the filling until close to serving instead of refrigerating it. It's fine if leftovers dry out, they're leftovers. But you wouldn't want that to happen to your fresh cake.
There is a France chef who does not role it. He lets the cake could down on the counter and place the filling on it and roles it very tight. It is what i always do as well.
@@garydiscala5860 yes. I was revering to him I just didn't remember his name. It is how I learned at as well. You never put it in the fridge. That was his first mistake. I also think he had his oven too high or he had it on hot air. Which explains why it was done much quicker than in the recipe and crumbled when he was folding..
@@annaschweissinger3462 It does not make a lot of difference if you use a quality kind of chocolate chips. Good chocolate chips are the same as a chocolate bar. I Chips are easier to melt. More important is the temperature of the chocolate when melted
Hey Jamie!!! DO NOT EVER let the cake rest in the fridge!!! No matter what is in the books, the cake will harden and make it imposible for you to roll it! Love and regards from Brazil
Also, he used parchment paper between the towel and the cake. A slightly damp towel is there to help keep the cake moist so that it won't crack as much. He totally negated that here.
The spun sugar made me cry. Your sugarplums and rosemary look fantastic. Your mushrooms are straight out of a magical forest. Julia is crying tears of joy in heaven with the rest of us who love your videos.
After your strawberry rolled cake, I told my aunt about the episode. She's been cooking and baking for a large family for approx. 60 years and her immediate reaction after I had just started my story was "Oh, rolled cakes are hard! There are so many variables and the timing has to be just right for everything!" So you're not alone! 😉
I see so many people saying that rolled cakes are hard and it confuses me so much, because it's literally a coffee table staple in my country. If somebody asks for an easy recipe, people are quaranteed to recommend rolled cakes with a variety of toppings 😅
I think part of the problem with the baking time is probably that Julia says she's using a jelly roll pan, which would be significantly less long and wide than the large baking sheet that you're using, so her cake was probably quite a bit thicker than yours and so would have taken longer to bake (and this would also make it less prone to cracking apart when rolling). That compounded with the fact that, as you said, ovens were different back in her day, is probably why you were getting such drastically different results. (Also, don't put it in the fridge!! Don't set the cake in the fridge!!! Never do this with a rolled cake until it is completely assembled!!!)
The cake did appear a bit thin. My mother made the same mistake the first time she baked a bûche de Noël. She baked it in a cookie pan. The cake was so thin that the rolled result looked more like a Yule... turd. After two dozens of eggs (not wasted, since we ate the "experiments" anyway), a neighbour lent her the right pan, less wide and deeper. The result was perfect, just in time for Christmas Eve.
Were ovens really all that different? I moved from a brand new construction home to a midcentury home last year and I use my original 1960s oven almost every day, never felt it was that different
Always use a temperature gauge in your stove. They all run different temps. I agree I thought he had the wrong size pan or beat the air out of the batter from over mixing.
I just want to say that a lesser man would DEFINITELY have thrown it in after the third false start. Hats off to you, sir, for your patience and commitment, and for reminding me that my own baking disaster yesterday does not actually make me a horrible cook 💙
Well he did lube up a bit on the rum in the middle of this. Being that it's a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, it's not easy to see that it's even rolled. Why not crumble up the fail cake with the frosting and pack it into a tubular pan then chill it? This is sometimes done by Ms. Reardon on How To Cook That. Call it particle board log, or something like that. (Granted that it may not be possible to glom on to one of these tubular pans at the last moment without something like Amazon Prime.) Or maybe chill in a rectangular pan then carve it into a cylinder? "Fail" food can often be reformatted. I once did Swedish meatloaf with a Swedish meatball recipe not having the time to make the meatballs.
I don't know any RU-vidr with your level of patience and perseverance. David Saymour fucks up and he's like.. oh, the recipe failed. Claire Saffitz would cry after doing a recipe 3 times. At most I think of Babish and his purple yam swiss cake (you might enjoy that episode, look it up). Congrats, you're a role model 🤗
Claire saffitz doesn’t cry from doing a recipe 3 times lol she would get frustrated for the bit after trying to recreate a commercially processed food like pop rocks, where each individual part of the “recipe” was a lab experiment she tried 50 times. She does Julia child’s pastry recipes for fun as a side note. I love both creators, but don’t discredit the insanity she goes through on gourmet makes
@@whitneybobitney I do think a better mindset would help a lot though. And if the producers gave her 2-4 weeks. I don't remember how long she had. I would think that using her knowledge to solve these problems would be fun for her but she seems to not like the iterative process. At least not on whatever time limit they gave her.
I am so so so thankful that you showed your struggles through this... I ended up with 3 unusable Pumpkin Roll CRUMBLES one thanksgiving and CRIED. I swore off roll cakes!!! Forever!!! YOUR VIDEO HAS MADE ME FELT SO SEEN.
There should be a baking emergency hotline staffed with the highest level pastry chefs who are also trained in forensics and will tell you exactly what is going wrong in any given recipe! 😆 Still, it's always great to see real life cooking from you Jamie and real life problem solving. Those mushrooms were a real work of art! Happy Holidays everyone ❤
interestingly enough, the King Arthur folks have a hotline where actual humans answer. They're pretty good, maybe not Cedric Grolet, but hey I'm not sure that would even be all that helpful for home kitchen bakes.
Ann Reardon from How To Cook That on RU-vid does that on her channel! It's really good content, she's a food scientist so it's super cool learning from people's baking fails
Your videos are so good and relatable. I'm french and have baked rolled cake since I'm a little girl with my grandmother for christmas. I don't really where it goes wrong but for me, you cook the cake for like 7 to 10 minutes in the oven at 240° celsius on a buttered parchment paper and then, as soon at it's off the oven, you roll it in a wet dishcloth and let it rest and cool off (not in the fridge) until you fill it with whatever you want. It never failed me.
I think the reason that the rolled cakes aren’t working is because Julia’s recipe calls for a jelly-roll pan which is the size of a half sheet pan, but it looks like Jamie is just using a normal sheet pan, so the cake is coming out too thin because of the too large pan and it is making it impossible to roll.
the pan called for is 11 by 17 and he measured; im pretty sure the reason is because he way over baked (causing cracking) and then put it in the fridge instead of room temp when re rolling.
I have never pre rolled . I could hardly fill and roll once. Lol. He was so fun to watch. Beautiful little mushrooms and it all looked fabulous in the end.
I watched a lady making a pumpkin roll. She rolled her cake, unrolled it immediately, then flipped and rolled it the opposite direction. She said that was how you kept the cake from cracking. I've never tried this myself.
Having made a Yule log the past few Christmases and then vowing NEVER AGAIN after the last time, I feel your pain Jamie. What I love about you is you're not a quitter! I always throw in the towel after the first mishap, but you just pick yourself up and try again. And look how it turned out!! You're an inspiration to all us fellow home bakers/cooks!
My additional trick for sponge rolls: mentally prepare for failure and have plan B for it. This batter can smell fear, the little... Planning for desaster eliminates fear. Don't remove the paper, either. You can immediately roll the baked dough into it. And, of course, buy enough ingredients for multiple attempts. ❤️❤️❤️ I love your spirit.
I’ve never felt so sorry for anyone! You poor thing! I would have given up after the first try! You deserve a medal. Even though I was taught how to cook by my French grandmother (who could boil a pot in another pot and make it taste good), I’ve never attempted this! Kudos to you et Joyeux Noel…🎄
When that 3rd sponge cracked, my heart just broke for you. I tip my hat to you for not just downing the rum, setting the kitchen on fire, and walking away.
Congrats Jamie, it looked amazing! Here's my two cents: I think the chocolate cake you rolled up previously was thicker. You might need a jelly roll cake pan rather than a half sheet. That would also mean it bakes a little longer 🤷 but honestly if you never did one again no one would blame you!
I came here to say that all the cakes he made looked much too thin. I agree that he needed a smaller pan, or more cake batter. Rolled cakes are tricky devils, but there just wasn't enough cake to hold itself together when rolled.
I just looked it up. A jelly roll pan is 15" x 10" and a half sheet is 18"x 13". That's 150 square inches as compared to 234 square inches for the half sheet. That's a big difference. I think you are on to something here. I agree the cake looks too thin.
For me, this is your most beautiful dessert to date and worthy of a place in a bakery front window. The mushrooms look so realistic, and you arranged the other woodsy touches so beautifully. The sugar floss gave it an ethereal touch. C'est magnifique! 👏🏆🏅 As a former ballerina (Royal Ballet), I especially loved your Nutcracker selections. 🧚♀️ You are really outstanding at creating these videos. This is one of my very favorites. I absolutely loved it!
I remember watching, as a child with my mom, Julia doing that spun sugar broom handle thing and we both died laughing at how over the top that was! LOL your method was just as effective 😉
i’m SO glad the algorithm decided to showcase you in my recommendations 😭 you’re the best youtube discovery of 2022. i’ve loved binging all your old videos these last few months and watching your skills and confidence grow! thank you for sticking with it and putting in all this work. i hope 2023 is an even bigger and better year for you 💕 happy holidays! enjoy the lil break
Right?!?!? I deff felt the same way. Honestly don’t recall how I came across him but it was a great one. The super hard stew thing that has stuff on top lol
Bake it on an aluminum foil, than roll it and leave it inside for about 30 min, the steam will help to detach it easily, and It won’t crack! I’ve been making la bûche de Noël l🪵 for years, it never breaks. You got this!
Or parchment and wrap in a clean towel when rolling it first. When ready to fill unroll and fill and reroll. Is there such a word as reroll? Jamie and Christina have a very Merry Christmas 🎅🎄☃️🙏👍
I remember watching my grandmother making this exact recipe as a child. Her pan was smaller and she never put it in the fridge..she had the meringues ready right before it came out of the oven and rolled it as soon as the cake was cooled enough to tolerate the heat from it and rush and go..it tasted amazing and if she messed up none of us in the family ever ever noticed
From a fellow Guelphite: your tenacity is the best thing about this channel! Your Buche de Noel effort was unbelievable - as was the finished product! Merry Christmas!
I cooked professionally for 18 years, I can’t bake worth a damn but you have inspired me to take up baking I love seeing all the mistakes I have made , baking is definitely an art great job and thank you
My mum always made a chocolate log at Christmas and she always said it didn't matter if it cracked because the chocolate hid everything! Also sometimes the cracks look kind of cool, looking like cracks in the wood if you dress it up properly! Great job!
You’re a better man than me, Gunga Din - You made a gorgeous Bûche de Noël! I would’ve stopped after Disaster #1, scooped everything up, shaped it into a ball or balls, placed it in a decorative platter, and iced it liberally. Then I’d’ve placed the mushrooms strategically, sprinkled sugared raspberries around, and called it a Merde de Noël. Happy holidays (whichever they may be), kick back, drink up, pop some corn and watch a great Christmas movie. Mine is THE REF. If you haven’t seen it, give it a shot. You won’t shoot your eye out!
I have had a really crappy day. Seeing you posting a video genuinely made it a little better, and for what it is worth seeing the failures makes the success feel so much more genuine in your videos. A sincere thank you from someone who needed something to look forward to lately.
What makes you the BEST is that your real. You show how these recipes really work. I feel like I’m a pretty good cook/baker but sometimes shit happens and things don’t always turn out right. I’d much rather watch a video like this than one where a regular everyday guy like yourself busts out these crazy perfect dishes time after time! Great Job Jamie BEST RU-vid CHEF OUT THERE!!❤
That's exactly the way Julia was on The French Chef show back in the 60's. She was happy when things didn't go exactly right. She would encourage you not to panic. And then show you things to do to save the meal or turn it into something else. She was so encouraging and wanted everyone to believe they could do this stuff and to keep trying and not give up. One time she stuck her spatula into the running mixer and sent it flying across the room. One time she got choked on a green bean and kept coughing and hacking the rest of the show. One time her apple something collapsed into a blob on the plate. One time she jammed up her meat grinder with fish. She grabbed hot pans and skillets and burned her fingers a few times. She was just real, and Jamie is carrying on the real. Great job Jamie and thanks so much!!!
Mate, I'm a pastry chef. I got done yesterday making 13 of those Yule Logs, and trust me, I hate them too. I always make more sponge cake sheets that I need because I will fuck up at least one. You did good, my friend. Merry Christmas!
I vividly remember, as a child, watching this exact episode of Julia Childs PBS show. Broomstick and all! Thanks for bringing it to life for me, albeit very much appreciated, 2022 style.
I remember watching Julia's Yule Log episode as a kid, and as I recall, she used an actual broom handle to create the moss. I found it amazing and hilarious at the same time. Watch that episode if you can. 🤣
Julia would be so incredibly proud! Those mushrooms were perfection. For whatever it’s worth I think Julie would have appreciated your humor and approach to her recipes. I think she would have been tickled by you. Wishing you and your family a beautiful holiday season!
I'm amazed. Your final finished cake was the most beautiful you've ever produced. It looked sensational. I think the lesson here is when the cake breaks up just roll with it, gather it together into a log shape and proceed as you finally did with the third one. The extra rosemary and cranberries were inspirational and just added to the event. Have a really good Christmas and New Year and I like loads of your subscribers will be looking forward to more madness and miracles in 2023 from you. All the Very Best!!
This made me wonder - you know how people make truffles or cake pops with crumbled up cake mixed with frosting and rolled into balls? If your rolled cake is a disaster, can it be purposely crumbled, mixed with frosting, then rolled into a log?
I thought you were going to give up, but the result looks absolutely stunning! This is easily my favourite cooking show on RU-vid, keep doing what you're doing man, you're amazing!
Jamie, you are an absolute treasure. A genuine, absolute treasure. One of the best things about this year was finding your channel. You never fail to put a smile on my face, and that can be a tall order on too many days. I thought this Yule log turned out beautifully, and I ADORE those mushrooms!!! Like, I’m obsessed, lol! I’m wishing you and yours Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. 🎄❤️
I make this recipe every year and the TEA TOWEL throws me every single time! i just let it cool very slightly before putting the creme de chantilly on and just rolling it then immediately cooling it in the fridge and it works each time : D
Merry Christmas Jamie and Christina 🎅🎄☃️❄ I use parchment and then roll with a clean towel and let it hold rolled till ready to fill. Make filling ahead and then refrigerate and then I bake my sponge. I never pit my sponge in the fridge until after filled. Fridge drys it out. A joy as always Jamie...you will conquer and will be able to do this with eyes closed...instincts( I don't bake mine as long as well about 12 to 15 minutes, because you've got this👍🙏
Amazing job Jamie! It turned out so pretty!! Those mushrooms were so cute! The improvising around the sugar spun moss worked really well too! I live vicariously through you in the kitchen and glad you're doing it so I don't have to. Your tenacity is admirable!
I feel ya, sponge was not my favorite to do but when it works it looks great. I roll with parchment paper or wax and I don't roll as tight as you do. especially since I usually put fruit in it. But I do enjoy watching someone doing Julia's cooking. She made things look so effortless
I've just entirely randomly stumbled across your content, I'm a fan of a lot of the big food tubers on the site, so it was only a matter of time until I spotted your stuff. The collective works of Julia have a very important place in my life, when my mother first turned ill and had to retire she fell in love with the works of Julia, and really developed a passion for the culinary arts that she helped instill in me. We lost her a few years ago, and so as I sit here and watch this I find myself thinking that it's beautiful that another generation can learn to cook the same way she did, with the inspiration from a fantastic chef who wanted to bring culinary arts to the masses. You've got to subscriber for life, now excuse me while I go watch your entire backlog. Happy Christmas.
Props to you for managing to make such a beautiful Bûche ! Honestly most people in France just buy one... it's really hard to make in my opinion plus it is the finishing touch of a christmas dinner so i'd rather bail then fail on that one lol Yours came out wonderful even after the trial and tribulation ! Bravo !
Cozying up to watch this as the storm front comes through. Thank you for all your hard work, Jamie! These videos never fail to put a smile on my face ☺️☺️
First off, I just want to say bravo! It looks fabulous! Actually you had me clapping and yelling bravo, bravo to The Silver Fox. 😂 I’m just wondering if the pan is too big for the amount of batter and that’s why it keeps cracking. Just an idea…. Still, you did an awesome job! Bravo again!
My jelly roll pans are 10” x 15”, not 11” x 17”. The cakes in this video look too thin, hence overbaking, extensive cracking, etc. I use a similar cake recipe, and mine cooks in 18 minutes, but that's at 6,500’ elevation. Don't overbeat the egg whites because that dries them. Also, I use a knife to partially cut through the cake about 1” from the edge where I start rolling and use sugared parchment instead of a towel. Don't give up! You can do it! (In the meantime, make rum soaked trifles with the scraps.)
I have baked a Buche de Noel a few times over the past 40 years. The toughest part is absolutely making the sponge cake. Good on you for persevering. PS: never used powdered sugar, just the moist towel to roll the cake. Also, if doing a chocolate cake, I like to use a little cocoa powder because it blends in better. I like to fill my Buche with whipped cream and save the ganache for the frosting.
The music score for the footage between 10:00 and 10:37 is perfect. It's soaring and hopeful, almost an embodiment of Jamie's tenacious effort in making this damned cake 🤣
if it cracks, cover it with frosting...more frosting is always better. Buche de Noel is super daunting. I'm super impressed. When it comes to decorating them, make it yours! Directions are good, but sometimes decorating is more of an art than a science. Also, I use wax paper and the back of a chair for the spun sugar.
Rolled cakes are one of the most unforgiving desserts to make, but the wow factor makes them worth it. Great finished presentation. I tap the sifter with a fork/spoon to get a light dusting. It gives a lot more control. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and all.
This is becoming my favorite RU-vid channel… like, ever. I don’t bake. I don’t invest a ton of time into meals. I get it… it makes sense to me as to why people would. But this show… this guy… he’s one of us! The cooking, the recipes, the comedy, the struggles and overcoming the struggles. Victory dammit. Victory for us all! 💪
I'm pretty sure the wooden spoon is supposed to be horizontal, not vertical, and you flick the sugar back and forth over it so drapes over and hangs down over the spoon in strands
I don't enjoy cooking, I'm terrible at it, but after watching Jamie I've gotten braver in the Kitchen. All your stress is worth it for all the inspiration you give. Thank you and Merry Xmas!
Man, I have SO MUCH RESPECT for you! I watched the strawberry rolled cake episode too, and I would have given up. But you stuck it out and made beautiful cakes (eventually) in both episodes. Well done. You're definitely doing yeoman's work on these difficult recipes, showing us that it really can be done.
That was a journey. We appreciate your perseverance! There's a lesson in it, for sure. Can I just say how beautiful those mushrooms were!!! And the finished product bore none of your struggles. Which is as it should be. See you in 2023!
