Vegan yule log

 

According to Google, Yule Logs are delicious cakes made to represent actual 'Yule Logs', which are specially selected logs chosen to burn on the hearth as a Christmas tradition. Usually made with tonnes of chocolate, they aren't very often vegan, but here's a veganised version for you!

I looked around for existing recipes but every one I found had some fancy ingredient in that I didn't have or couldn't eat - silken tofu for icing (3/4 of my family have a soya intolerance, so not the best choice for us personally!), apple cider vinegar as an egg replacement which our local shop doesn't stock, or aquafaba which I've personally never had any success with. Therefore, this creation was born with help from my sister!

The cake in this recipe is light and fluffy, and pairs perfectly with the creamy icing that covers the cake. To assemble it, simply cut the cake into 4 pieces, with a larger piece for the base and a smaller piece for the top. Stack these with icing between each layer, and coat with the remainder of the icing. Then, draw lines on the cake with a fork until it looks like a log!

You need to make sure the cake is completely cooled before you begin to ice it, or you'll be left with an icing avalanche! The cake itself doesn't take ever so long to bake, most of the time for this recipe is for cooling and decorating.

This took around 4 hours to make, and made around 12 servings.

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 250g self raising flour (or 250g plain + 2 tsp baking powder)
• 225g caster sugar
• 165ml vegetable oil
• 240ml oat milk (or plant milk of choice)
• 1.5 tsp of lemon juice (don't worry you can't taste this, it's to replace the egg!)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder

For the icing:

• 380g icing sugar
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• 300g vegan butter (we used the pure baking tub!)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. In a bowl, sift the flour and cocoa powder, and stir in the sugar and salt. Mix until combined.
3. In a seperate bowl, mix the oat milk, oil, vanilla extract and lemon juice. Then, pour into the bowl with the flour mixture and mix until a cake batter forms. 
4. Line a 11" x 9" baking tray with baking parchment. Pour the mixture and spread it so it forms a rectangle - it doesn't matter if it doesn't take up the whole baking tray as long as it's rectangular and even!
5. Bake for 15 minutes, until a knife comes out clean and the top of the sponge has a bounce to it.
6. Leave until completely cool.
7. Time to decorate! In a bowl, mix the vegan butter, cocoa powder and icing sugar to make a butter cream. You might want to do this gradually so it mixes better, and using a hand held whisk will speed it up.
   
8. Stack the pieces of cake from largest to smallest on top of each other, icing inbetween each layer. Make sure you have some left for the outside!
9. Cover the outside of the cake with the icing so the inside of the cake is completely hidden. Once covered, run a fork along the outside to give it a log effect.
10. Time to serve! If you can't wait you can eat it straight away, or if you want it to firm up a bit it's easier to serve if it's been in the fridge for a couple of hours before hand. To make it extra fancy you can always grate some chocolate on the top and sprinkle some icing sugar for a snow effect!