Gather your mise en place; get together all of the equipment needed for the recipe and gather your ingredients.

Preheat an oven to 325°F.

Begin by heating the milk, butter and sugar in a pot.

Bring to the boil and pour the flour and cocoa powder over the liquid and scald the batter
for a few minutes, as in a choux pastry.

Pour the batter into a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and leave it there until it
cools down, add the egg yolks and whole eggs one at a time.

Separately, beat the egg whites with the sugar.

Carefully A technique used to gently mix two ingredients together to create a light fluffy consistency. Start by scooping around the outside of the bowl and cutting through the centre. Turn the bowl and repeat the process.fold the two batters together.

Once everything is mixed, spread onto sheet pans with a height of 1 centimeter.

Bake at 325°F for 15 minutes and then set aside.

Remove from the oven and quickly loosen the edges with a thin spatula. Right away
remove it from the baking sheet keeping the parchment on. Place a second sheet of parchment paper over the top and roll the cake into a log, starting from the narrow end. 

Cool to room temp.

Assembling the Buche de Noel

Unroll cake, removing the backing paper as you go and lay it out on the large baking
sheet. Brush top evenly with Coffee Syrup. Let sit to soak up the syrup while you make the
Mascarpone cheese filling.

Spread mascarpone cheese filling evenly over the top of the cake then roll, somewhat tightly, into a log shape, rolling in the same direction as the first time you rolled it. Trim off both sides of the roll to make it presentable. Slice ¹⁄₄ of the cake off on the diagonal (about 45˚ angle).

Transfer the larger log portion to your serving platter. Place this stump over the top of your log with the flat side down. Refrigerate cake until ready to frost with chocolate ganache. Beat room temperature chocolate ganache on high speed for 45 seconds to 1 min or until fluffy (don’t over-beat or it may start looking a little grainy). Spread evenly over yule log, but don’t frost the sliced ends of the log.

Pull a fork across the entire surface of the log, making some spirals to add natural character. It helps to wipe the fork frequently with a paper towel as you go.
For effect: Dust the top with cocoa powder. You can also add sprigs of pine.
Decorate with meringue mushrooms.