Chocolate And Salted Caramel Yule Log. My 50 Favorite Songs Of 2013.

Festive Fifty time.

Here are my 50 Favorite Songs Of 2013.

1. Youngblood Hawke-We Come Running
2. Arcade Fire-Reflektor
3. Sparrow & The Workshop-Shock Shock
4. Daft Punk-Get Lucky
5. Junip-Line Of Fire
6. Plastic Animals-Best Friend
7. Here Is Your Temple-So High
8. Okkervil River-Where The Spirit Left Us
9. Adam Stafford-Please
10. Andrew St James-Cassidy
11. Drunk Mule-Days Spent Speedin’ Around
12. Fitz & The Tantrums-Out Of My League
13. Book Group-Summer Of Lunches
14. Magic Eye-Golden Circle
15. Rick Redbeard-Cold As Clay (The Grave)
16. Euros Childs-Tete a Tete
17. 17 Pygmies-Isabel XI
18. Trips And Falls-The Freedom Of Homogeneity
19. Matt Pond-Love To Get Used
20. Ben Folds-Broken Piano
21. Frightened Rabbit-Holy
22. The Boy Least Likely To-A World Of Polka Dots
23. The Leg-Chicken Slippers
24. Snippet-Absolute Love
25. Heyward Howkins-Sweet Tea Oleander
26. Mahoney & The Moment-Who Is Archie Lane?
27. Dave Hughes & The Renegade Punk Band-As You Are
28. It Girl-Victim To The Clock
29. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds-We Real Cool
30. The Blondies-Keep You To Myself
31. The National-Demons
32. Shearwater-Fucked Up Life
33. Gogol Bordello-Lost Innocent World
34. Lisa Bouvier-Every Year Until We Die
35. Filigar-El Trepador
36. The Colourist-Little Games
37. Ajimal-This Human Joy
38. The Twilight Sad-Tell me When We’re Having Fun
39. Johnny Marr-The Messenger
40. Tim Noyes-Patterns
41. ONSIND-Dissatisfactions
42. Gymnast-Build A Boat
43. Heavenly Beat-Faithless
44. Dead Professional-Downtown At Sundown
45. The Chilterns-Roadside Memorials
46. Lowly Spects-There’s A Blue Sky
47. Mast.-Romance
48. Honeyblood-Bud
49. Killing Fields Of Ontario-Our Place To Drown
50. Gaoler’s Daughter-Cordelia

And here is a festive recipe.

I always serve a bûche de Noël on Christmas Eve. Make it one with the salty/sweet thing and nothing could be closer to heaven.

This recipe has a bunch of steps to put it all together, but nothing too difficult and completely worth every effort. What you get is a light chocolate sponge filled with a decadent salted caramel cream and covered in a thick, rich coat of dark chocolate ganache. Like I said…Heaven.

Chocolate And Salted Caramel Yule Log

Ingredients for the sponge:

3 large eggs, separated
½ tsp cream of tartar
100g/1/2 cup caster sugar
1 Tbs milk
30g/1/3 cup cocoa powder
30g/3 Tbs flour
¼tsp fine salt
Confectioners’ sugar to dust parchment paper

Ingredients for the salted caramel meringue buttercream:

120g/scant 1/2 cup caster (superfine) sugar
2 Tbs golden syrup
120ml double (heavy) cream
1 tsp sea salt
2 large egg whites (about 75g)
150g/3/4 cup granulated sugar
200g unsalted butter, softened

Ingredients for the chocolate ganache icing:

200g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped
100ml double (heavy) cream

Directions to make the sponge:

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc / 350ºf / gas 4.

2. Grease and line a Swiss roll tin (approximately 25cm x 35cm/ 9 x 13 inch) with parchment paper.

3. Whisk together the three egg whites in a clean bowl until soft peaks form. Add the cream of tartar and whisk until stiff.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the caster sugar and egg yolks until thickened and pale yellow. Add the milk and whisk again until just combined. Sift the cocoa powder, plain flour and salt onto the egg yolk mixture, then fold together until just combined.

5. Gently fold in a third of the egg whites. Once fully combined with no streaks of egg white, repeat with the other two-thirds of the mixture.

6. Pour batter into the prepared tin and bake for 15 minutes until the top is springy and the sides have shrunk away from the edge of the tin. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. While still warm, roll up the sponge from the long end with the parchment paper still on. Leave to cool completely then carefully unroll. (Rolling while warm makes it easier to roll the cake later).

Directions to make the buttercream:

1. Combine the caster sugar, golden syrup and 120ml cold water in a heavy saucepan. Stir with a wooden spoon over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved, then simmer for 3-5 minutes until color is dark caramel (watch closely as it is easy to burn.) Immediately remove from the heat and carefully add cream and salt, stirring until smooth. Leave to cool completely.

2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the two egg whites with the granulated sugar. When soft peaks form, place the bowl over a pan of simmering water (don’t let the water touch the bowl) and stir until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture looks a bit like runny marshmallow. Remove from the heat and whisk with an electric mixer until the bottom of the bowl feels cool (this can take about 10 minutes).

3. Add the butter, about 25g at a time, beating continuously until thick. Add the cooled caramel to the buttercream and whisk until just combined.

Directions for the icing:

1. Place the dark chocolate into a heatproof bowl.

2. Heat the cream in a saucepan until just about to boil. Pour cream over the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is thick enough to spread. Allow to cool completely.

Directions to assemble cake:

1. Peel parchment paper from the sponge and place, smooth side down, on a fresh piece of parchment paper dusted with confectioners’ sugar.

2. Spread the buttercream across the sponge and gently roll up from one long end, as before. Place on a serving plate and chill for 15 minutes.

3. Cut off the ends of the cake roll on the diagonal and reattach them in the center of the cake with a bit of buttercream to fashion a “branch” coming off the main Yule log.

4. Spread the exterior of the yule log with enough chocolate ganache to cover it. Gently pull a fork through the ganache to give the appearance of rough tree bark.

Serves 12

Recipe from Delicious Magazine

I saw Youngblood Hawke in January when they were the opening act for Keane.

I had never heard of them before, but was totally captivated by their energetic stage presence and catchy songs. I bought their EP, which was brilliant. Their debut full length album ‘Wake Up’ came out later in the year with even more fun, danceabout, sing along tunes.

My number one song of the year is Youngblood Hawke’s epic crowd pleaser “We Come Running”. I’m surprised the song didn’t get more airplay given that it received a lot of media usage including sports spots, Coca Cola ads and a Nerf Rebelle television commercial.

I still get as pumped every time I hear this song now as I was way back in January.

Here’s the video for “We Come Running” so you can listen to the song as well as watch these cuties.