Making a Yule log the night before

I am making Mary Berry's Yule log for Christmas after a very successful practice run a few weeks ago. Due to lack of oven space on Christmas day I was hoping to make Yule log the night before. I follow Mary berry technique of rolling up sponge when it's out of the oven and let it cool. My question is should I leave the sponge to cool overnight, roll up sponge with cream filling and place it in fridge overnight or should I completely finish my Yule log the night before with chocolate frosting and all? I don't want the sponge to dry out nor do I want the frosting to be rock hard either. Any tips?
Also I'm wanting to make it chocolate orange by putting in some orange marmalade on sponge before cream and putting some zest and juice into frosting and cream. Flavor combo sound good? Any alterations I should make?

E
  • Posted by: E
  • December 7, 2020
  • 3200 views
  • 1 Comment

1 Comment

Lori T.
Lori T. December 7, 2020
I make my yule log the day before as well, and store it assembled in the fridge overnight. I take it out of the refrigerator the morning of the big day, and let it sit at room temperature while I go on to the other tasks at hand. The decoration needs to wait until shortly before serving, of course- if you wanted to add meringue mushrooms, for instance, or sugared berries, etc. But I find the cake does quite well chilled overnight, and is one less item that "must" be done on the day.
I think orange/chocolate is a classic combo that will taste wonderful. You could brush warmed marmalade over the sponge before filling, or even sprinkle something like Cointreau or Grand Marnier- if it's not going to children, of course. If you add flavoring to the filling, I'm not sure you would want to add more to the frosting though. The idea is to have a balance of flavors, and if you add too much orange flavor to things, it can take control. The chocolate should be dark and rich, so the citrus is a bright, acidic counterpoint. So maybe, instead of adding orange to the chocolate ganache, you could create decorations of sugared peel flowers or strips. Or even orange flavored meringue mushrooms?
 
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