As every year, the editorial staff of
20 Minutes
accompanies you during the December holidays.
And like every year, we run after the essentials of the table and the decoration.
In 2022, we reveal a little more about the kings of the fiesta.
From December 23 to 25, find the underside of the “Hotte Stuffs”, these Christmas or New Year stars.
In other words, the tree, the Christmas ball, the wrapping paper, the log and, finally, the iconic orange.
All illustrated by our journalist, queen of pencils, Diane Regny.
In this fourth episode, the log speaks.
An essential dessert, it has become timeless thanks to the know-how of the pastry chefs who have managed to make it less greasy and less sweet to meet the desires of today's gourmets.
I am one of the emblems of Christmas, like any self-respecting celebrity I make myself desired, I can crunch under the tooth or melt on the tongue, it takes (sometimes) courage to attack me after a hearty meal, I am… Clue, in your house: I am a champion.
As ephemeral as it is symbolic during this holiday season.
Are you giving up?
Come on, I'll give it to you, I'm the Yule log.
And it's a safe bet that I garnished your Christmas Eve table.
According to a survey published last year, I am in fact the third most essential item on the Christmas menu, after my savory colleagues, foie gras and salmon.
I am therefore the iconic dessert of the end of the year.
"If we estimate that a pastry shop produces on average between 600 and 700 logs over the holiday period, that's more than 3 million logs", calculates Laurent Le Daniel, best worker in France (1997) and president of the confederation of pastry, an organization that brings together around 4,500 pastry chefs.
"The flagship product of the month of December"
I told you, I'm successful.
And again, this figure only counts the pastry chefs, not the bakeries, which also produce large quantities for me.
So, if we add the large distribution, it's a tide of logs that breaks on the stalls, despite the context.
Egg, butter, flour, sugar, chocolate… All the basic ingredients that allow me to be shaped see their prices skyrocket, and these increases are reflected in my price.
But, word of pastry chef, I continue to seduce you.
“The yule log remains the star product of the month of December, thanks to the French tradition, thanks to the Christmas party.
No matter what worries the French may have, they will continue to buy them, even if it means making an extra effort.
The excitement is real.
There were 600 people for an open day in my shops at the beginning of the month, ”says Laurent Le Daniel, who plans to make around 4,000 logs in his five pastries in the Rennes region.
Made at the last moment
The pastry chefs work for months on original creations.
But the key is to start making myself at the last moment.
“50% of success is due to your freshness.
We don't make you in September and then freeze you.
That, the large distribution knows very well how to do it.
The rest of the secret consists in finding a good balance between the biscuit and the cream”, confides Stéphane Glacier, a pastry chef specializing in my production, author of three books on logs, who has developed my recipe and offers around 3,000 of my congeners at the tasting.
“We have reworked the sugar and fat levels, so that you are less heavy to eat.
Before, you were made up of a lot of cream and not a lot of crunch.
If you are made with buttercream like thirty years ago, it is impossible to be successful, ”adds the specialist.
Diversify, yes;
distort, no way.
In his pastry shop in Bois-Colombes, this Meilleur Ouvrier de France (2000) offers to dress me in chocolate (50% of his sales), but also in red fruits or chestnuts.
At the top of the best sellers among pastry chefs
Same observation at Silax, in Fontenay-sous-Bois.
“To keep fresh, I only work on command.
A month before Christmas, he had 250 like me to prepare, with three flavors: Coco Djambo, brown blackcurrant igloo and log with two pralines.
The secret for this Ile-de-France pastry chef, also a jury at the chocolate fair?
“Making the finishing touches at the last minute and giving the best.
If customers are happy at Christmas, they come back.
»
It must be said that the issue is important for my pastry chef friends.
December represents nearly 30% of their annual turnover, according to the confederation of pastry chefs.
And me, at the heart of this crucial month, I am the best employee of the month by prancing at the top of the best sales.
What do you want, the French never tire of me, ever since I was created at the end of the 19th century by a Parisian pastry chef.
From hearth to plate
Because before being a dessert, I was… A yule log.
A real.
In the forest.
And I invited myself into the family fireplace.
“The father of the family cut a large log from a fruit tree, because the fruit is a symbol of fertility.
Depending on the region, the youngest or the oldest in the household lit the log in the hearth on December 24, specifies Eric Birlouez, food sociologist and author of
A History of French Food
.
Sometimes the log was sprinkled with wine or olive oil.
The log should burn at least all night, and ideally until January 1st.
The ashes were kept to protect the family and the crops.
»
With the urbanization of the population, the practice faded to be supplanted by me: a sponge cake rolled with cream.
But my traditional decoration imitates the bark of a tree, to remember the tradition of yesteryear.
Since then, as I told you, my recipe and my design have evolved.
our file on Christmas
A thorny question remains to be asked: when to eat me?
December 24 in the evening?
The 25th during the day?
Opinions differ.
To decide, I called on Philippe Gardette, one of my most eminent specialists.
President of the International Culinary Order, this pastry teacher at the Belliard professional hotel school in Paris, knows me by heart.
In 2010, in the district of La Défense, he shaped me in length.
I was half chocolate and half raspberry, and for a time I became the longest log in the world, at almost 207 meters long.
His verdict is final: “You have to let go, have fun.
Yule logs are eaten all December long, non-stop.
»
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