In a continuation of my musing on Christmas food (see also mince pies and marzipan), today I write about the Yule Log. If you’re not familiar, this is a cake - usually a Swiss-roll type sponge - covered in chocolate icing or ganache to look like wood.

Versions are popular across Europe (in French it is the bûche de Noël). My mother made them sometimes when I was a child, and even had a tiny model robin to sit on the cake as a decoration.

As a dessert it’s very nice, makes a change from the denser fruitcake options. Indeed it’s unusual in Christmas sweets for not having any dried fruit in sight! So how did it get onto the Christmas table?

“Yule” refers to a winter festival of the pre-Christian Germanic groups of Europe. The “yule log” was once the choice log fallen from the woods to be burned during the winter festival.