Almond Pork Lung Soup 杏汁豬肺湯

Yule Log has never been my household tradition unless someone brought it to my house.  My Ex mother in law used to make it, but I always recall it's so messy to make.

Fun Facts: The Yule Log is a special log that people bring home to burn for the Winter solstice during the 12 days of Christmas. Yule celebrates the 12 days of Christmas on the eve of Winter Solstice all the way to the New Year.   A Yule Log is the beginning of a large tree, and it is specially chosen to be brought home for good luck for the rest of the year.  

This year, we had a few holiday dinners at home, and I thought, why not a Yule Log for the festive season.  I looked up a few videos and found it not the easiest thing to make.  It requires rolling the warm cake in a towel, letting it sit overnight, and then praying that it won't crack.  Sorry, that is just way too much work for me.  I saw these perfectly rolled Swiss rolls from the local bakery inside the MTR station and I said to myself, why don't I just buy the center and pretend I make it at home.    

Swiss roll is a classic bakery staple in all HK bakeries, not sure why, maybe the Brit brought it over.  But you can easily find smooth, fluffy Swiss rolls, some with lots of cream, some with just a thin layer of cream in between, and some even have fruit inside.  I am not even going to try to perfect that.  

I picked up a 3 swiss roll from Saint Honor Bakery HK, which is one of the famous bakeries that makes good Swiss rolls.  But the catch is that they are all sliced, they do not sell whole uncut rolls. Why would they?  So I bought 2 chocolate and 1 coffee rolls and it cost me $20 each.  Cheaper than buying flour for a cake.  

As they are quite delicate, I placed them all in the freezer to make it firm and more manageable to assemble.  Then, I alternate the coffee and chocolate  to assemble my Yule Log.  Because of our Asian taste for sweets, cakes in HK are traditionally Fluffy, not sweet, to me most of the time no taste.  Chocolate cake that does not taste like chocolate is what I usually say about them.  So to spice it up, I brush a generous amount of Grand Marnier, I think kalua would work too to make it more Christmasy.  Then I made a simple Royal Chocolate icing from Preppy Kitchen.  This recipe was pretty easy and all you need is to measure and mix it all together.  

I also used his technique to apply the snow on my rosemary branch and raspberry decorations.  But instead of making sugar syrup, I drizzle the rosemary with maple syrup and then dip in chocolate.  It actually tasted and smelled really nice with the Yule Log.  

Then all you need to do is patiently spread the frosting on top of the swiss roll and cover the whole cake up.  Messier the better as it builds character to your Yule Log.  At the end, just spread some long streaks to make some wood marks and you have yourself a log.  Add the rosemary and raspberry and hide any imperfection with powdered sugar and you will have yourself an impressive homemade Yule Log that takes no time to bake.  Totally my kind of recipe.   To see how it is done.  Check out my IG reels.