Posts Tagged ‘bûche de Noël’

Bûche de Noël – Unboxing!

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012
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Today I purchased a bûche de Noël at Le Founil de Mouffetard.

Bûche de Noël

I took it home and started to unwrap it.

Bûche de Noël

I removed the beautiful ribbon.

Bûche de Noël

I carefully opened the box…and WOW! A bûche de Noël!

Bûche de Noël

Looking more closely, I could see Frosty the Snowman on top. And the message, written in chocolate, Joyeuses Fêtes!

Bûche de Noël

After carefully removing the bûche from the box, I took a photograph.

Bûche de Noël

And then a close-up of Frosty.

Bûche de Noël

And then, I sliced the cake and ate a piece. Scrumptious! Happy Holidays!

Slice of bûche

Le Fournil de Mouffetard
123, rue Mouffetard
75005 Paris
Tel.: 01.47.35.07.96

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Tasting deNeuville Mini-bûches de Noël

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012
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From left to right: chestnut - vanilla - truffle

Mini-bûches de Noël by deNeuville
Feuilleté Châtaigne, Délice Vanille, Truffe Meringuée

Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

The French chocolate company deNeuville has launched a special line of chocolates for Christmas—Mini-bûches de Noël. These are bite sized ganaches, truffles, and pralines, all with a soft interior that is enrobed in a firm chocolate shell. Colored sugar crystals sprinkled on the shell add a festive touch.

We tasted three:

The Feuilleté Châtaigne is a chestnut praline enrobed in milk chocolate. We found the chestnut flavor to be so mild that we could barely distinguish it from the flavor of the milk-chocolate shell.

The Délice Vanille is a ganache that has a creamy vanilla-flavored center encased in a crunchy dark-chocolate shell. I found the center to have the flavor of strong eggnog, which triggered memories of the days when I could drink the beverage without gaining too much weight. Those days are over, so this eggnog-laced nibble is all that I will get for this season.

The Truffe Meringuée is a dark-chocolate truffle containing tiny bits of meringue covered in a firm, dark-chocolate shell.

While industrially-produced chocolates (which these are) are always satisfactory, we nonetheless prefer the more robust flavors of chocolates produced by small, artisanal chocolate makers. We’ll have something to say about the chocolates of an American artisanal chocolate maker in the coming days.

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Tasting Bûches de Noël at Le Fournil de Mouffetard

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011
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Le Spéculoos - left - La Nuance - right

Le Spéculoos (left) - La Nuance (right)
Photo by www.DiscoverParis.net

During the holiday season, business has been brisk at Le Fournil de Mouffetard, a bakery located on rue Mouffetard in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. Customers have been lining up to purchase a seasonal dessert called bûche de Noël, a cake dressed up to look like a Yule log. The foot-long logs are sold in their entirety or by the slice.

We stopped by Tuesday and purchased a slice of a log called Le Spéculoos, and another called La Nuance.

Le Spéculoos is made out of Spéculoos, a crunchy shortcrust cookie. This log consists of three elements: a mousse chocolat au lait frosting that envelops a dense crème de Spéculoos center, all resting on a crunchy base of crushed Spéculoos cookies. Just as Spéculoos cookies are a delight to eat, so was this Yule log. It was sweet with a spicy flavor of nutmeg. I was disappointed, though, that the mousse chocolat au lait frosting did not express a distinctive milk-chocolate flavor.

La Nuance is a log consisting of four elements: a layer of crémeux chocolat on top of two layers of biscuit chocolat; a layer of parfait au chocolat; and a bottom crust of pâte sablée. The crémeux chocolat was rich, dense, smooth, and sweet. The two layers of biscuit chocolat were, in reality, soft, moist chocolate cake, not crunchy cookie as the name biscuit would imply. The parfait au chocolat had the rich, sweet consistency of chocolate mousse.

Bûches de Noël are generally sold through the beginning of the New Year. We look forward to tasting galette des Rois on Epiphany, which falls on January 8 this year, and ending the Christmas season with crêpes on Candlemas, which falls on February 2.

Le Fournil de Mouffetard
123, rue Mouffetard
75005 Paris
Telephone: 01.47.07.35.96

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We participate in Wanderfood Wednesdays. Head over there to explore food from around the world!

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