A Chocolate Roulade,
France’s Christmas cake
225g (8 oz.) Dark Chocolate
150g (5 oz.) Caster Sugar
5 lge, Eggs
350ml (12 fluid oz.) Cream
For Praline
110g (4 oz.) sugar
110g(4 oz.) Slivered Almonds

First make the Praline;
Melt the 4 oz. of sugar in a small heavy pan. Keep it on the heat and, stirring from time to time, continue cooking until it turns nut brown. Tip in the almonds very carefully and stir into the mixture.
Have ready a lightly buttered baking tin and carefully tip the contents of the pot on to this.
Leave this to cool and set to a crisp toffee.
Bash the toffee into coarse crumbs (use a pestle and mortar if you have one, if not use the end of a rolling pin in a strong bowl or give it a quick whizz in a food processor).

Melt the chocolate with 4 tablespoons of water (do this either in a microwave set at medium or in a bowl over a pot of barely simmering water).
Separate the eggs and beat the whites up to soft peaks.
Beat the yolks up with the sugar until thick and white.
Fold the melted chocolate into the yolks and when well blended fold the whites in gently.
Have ready a swiss roll tin lined with non-stick paper.
Set the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the lined tin and bake at this temperature for 15 to 20 mts. (the mixture should still be soft and sticky in the middle).
Turn this out on to a wire rack (also lined with paper) and leave to cool completely.
Beat the cream until thick and put half of it to one side.
Mix the other half with the praline and spread over the chocolate cake.
Roll this up like a swiss roll and leave to set (don’t worry if it cracks, these can be covered later).

If you transfer the roulade on to a clean tea cloth before you put the praline cream on it makes the rolling much easier.

When set cover with the remaining cream and garnish with Holly etc if you want to be fancy.
The idea is that it looks like a snow covered log
Buche is the French word for log