A friend wants me to make Bûche de Noël for her. She will be picking it up from me on Friday and it will be given to her friends on Monday. I am using Rose’s recipe from TCB. The components are Chocolate Cloud Roll, Perfect Whipped Cream and Dark Chocolate Ganache.
My question is will the cake hold up for so long in the fridge? Rose says it can be refrigerated for 2 days.  Also the Perfect Whipped Cream calls for Cobasan (which is optional). I don’t have this ingredient and so will the whipped cream hold its shape or should I make the Stabilized Whipped Cream (with cornstarch) or the Super Stabilized Whipped Cream (with gelatin)? The reason I’m so worried is b/c she is paying for it and she wants 3 of them to give as gifts. Which means the people she is gifting it to will probably store it in the fridge for a few more days. By that time it will have been in the fridge for at least 6 days (from the time she picks it up from me).
Any suggestions????????????

Hi Rozanne,

It is so nice of you to make these cakes for your friend.

I have made the Buche de Noel, and it is a delicious cake that gets lots of compliments. My advice to you is to make the cake ahead of time and freeze it, and give it to your friend in the frozen state. From what I understand, the super stabilized whipped cream won’t really freeze well, so you have two options. Either make it an all-chocolate cake and fill it with light whipped ganache instead of whipped cream. Or, if you want the contrast of white cream with dark cake, fill it with white chocolate ganache. Any ganache, whether white chocolate or regular chocolate, is going to freeze just fine. Just make sure to wrap the cake really well soon after it is frozen, and enclose instructions for defrosting the cake. I have been getting a lot of holiday catalogs, and many companies ship their baked goodies—including cakes—frozen, and they charge a pretty penny for their wares. That is why I think freezing is a perfectly acceptable option.

Regarding using cobasan, I have never been able to find it. My favorite stabilizer for whipped cream is agar-agar (also known as kanten), which is a white, powdered seaweed extract that is often used in Asian desserts. I prefer it over gelatin because it is vegetable as opposed to animal, so there are no issues with my vegetarian and kosher guests.

CHRISTINE:
Good morning to you. I would like to ask you this ???? I have never heard of this ingredient “AGAR AGAR”. Can you post where you buy this & it’s approx price & any other info that you would like to post would be appreciated. Good luck to you from Las Vegas,NV. Enjoy the rest of the day young lady.

  ~FRESHKID.

Hi Freshkid,

I buy mine at an Asian grocery store. You can buy it online. Just google “agar” and you will find places that sell it, as well as a wikipedia entry that gives a lot of information on what it is.

The stuff I use comes as a powder, pre-mixed with some sugar. I don’t find the extra sugar to be a problem when I use it for stabilizing whipped cream. The important thing is, agar needs to be dissolved in a little boiling water, and added to the cold cream while it is still liquid.

Hi again Christine, thank you for your timely reply. Yes, I did find it at Google.

  ~FRESHKID.

Basically, agar agar is interexchangeably with Knox (unflavored gelatin).  Both are gelatin products, agar comes from seaweed, know from fish bones or other animal source.

I would make the buche a week in advance and freeze it, so it is very frozen when delivered.  Have your friend keep it frozen, or explain that it would need 24 hours in the refrigerator to be ready to serve.

When I made Josephine’s Hello Kitty 2007, I used super super stabilized whipped cream, and the assembled cake was frozen for 3 weeks.  After 36 hours of thawing (a ‘round’ cake takes longer to thaw than a log) nobody knew this was previously frozen.  My super super stabilized whipped cream calls for both:  corn starch and knox.

My Saturday internship at Satura Cakes, uses whipped cream extensivelly.  All completed cakes with whipped cream are frozen, thawed, refrozen, rethawed, really.  Whipped cream will freeze and thaw fine, but it will not rewhip/re-spread.  So always freeze when at completed/applied stage (fill your cake with it, pipe with it, then freeze).  We freeze often more than once due to mass production stage.  For example:  when making a chocolate ganache layered cupcake (in a cup), we first put a layer of sponge cake, then whipped cream, then a secon layer of sponge cake, then freeze.  This is prep stage #1.  Then, as needed, we take this frozen prep stage #1 out of the freezer, apply the layers of ganache on top, and the final piping, then refreeze.  We deliver these frozen to the retail store, and they thaw the final product as needed.  Never, the whipped cream is rewhipped or touched, after frozen.

Hi Hector,

Thank you so much for explaining that it is okay to freeze super-stabilized whipped cream. I am so relieved to know this! That means I have more options for making cakes ahead and freezing them, and I don’t have to worry if they are filled with whipped cream. Happy baking!

I’m also going to try my hand at a buche this year, but I’m going to fill mine with praline silk meringue buttercream in order to get some of the flavor of pastry cream, but with better keeping/freezing qualities. 

The traditional filling is chocolate buttercream, but you could easily go with a light whipped (chocolate) ganache for better freezing/keeping.

Incidentally, I was reading up on the history of a buche, and the story that is often told is that French bakers started making a log cake when Napolean banned hearth fires because of the supposed health dangers of the cold air coming in through chimney flues.  The tradition of burning a log at the winter solstice dates back thousands of years, and the French needed a “log” around which to gather and observe their traditions.

Cobasan is sold by Albert Uster and is said to stabilize whip cream for up to 36 hours.  I have been thinking of buying some but the quantity is so huge…

Julie- That sounds delicious! And thanks for the history. Though we are not French, my mother and I are francophiles and we make a buche de noel each year.
Filling the jelly roll with praline silk mbc sounds great! I have never made that buttercream before. Now that I have a handle on the meringue buttercream, I am excited to try the different flavor variations.

Christine, thanks for suggesting the Light Whipped Ganache. It’s a great idea although I’m tempted to try Hector’s suggestion too.

Hector, thanks for letting us all know that whipped cream can be frozen. I think I’m going to try one with Light Whipped Ganache and one with your super super stabilized whipped cream. I’ll let you all know how it turns out. Wish me luck guys…......