A traditional French Christmas is not complete without a buche de Noel or Yule Log. Every year I look forward to checking out what the celebrity pastry chefs and houses have come up with, as they each year try to outdo each other in terms of design, originality and taste. This year I especially love Pierre Herme's homage to Coco Chanel, pictured below.

Apparently it is a limited edition and can only be found in Tokyo. Though it doesn't look Christmassy, it still maintains the classic buche lines and of course the chocolate which remains traditional.

On a more masculine note, you have Christophe Michalak's red car buche, which doesn't appeal to me at all but which is still worth mentioning and viewing because it is so unusual. Michalak is an award winning pastry chef and the residing pastry chef of the Plaza Athénée in Paris, and you can see the car plate says "Plaza."

My buches are decidedly more classical-not to mention rough around the edges. I opted for chocolate and chestnut, as I adore chestnut and I like to use seasonal ingredients rather than summer fruit like raspberries and such. Out of the four buches I made over the past two weeks, none really came out as I wanted... The first pair I made with a chestnut pastry cream (crème patissière) filling which was delicious but somehow my ganache started to fall apart so the texture was not what I wanted.

As a result, I decided to frost the third one with a chestnut flavored whipped cream instead. I liked the overall result better, as the cream was lighter (okay, airier) than the ganache.

For my fourth and last buche I wanted to experiment with a mascarpone chestnut filling and a honey chocolate ganache. This time the ganache was divine, but the filling fell apart! At least I know how to construct my next buche...