One of my “themes” for this blog is simplicity.  I like to make simple food and simple desserts.  From working as a pastry chef, I have the experience to make over the top desserts, but I just don’t have the time or energy to do it.  This dessert is not like one of my usual desserts as it is fancy.  Uber fancy… but I truly enjoyed making it.  Thank you Daring Bakers for choosing it!  To see more Daring Baker’s posts go here or go here to see all of my past Daring Baker posts.

This month’s challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.  They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.  As with most challenges, we had many options for this dessert, but had to have the 6 elements of the yule log.  This is not to be confused with the other version of a Yule Log, that we did last year.

I chose to make my yule log with a passion fruit mousse, as I had recently made white chocolate passion fruit truffles (which I plan to blog soon) and had leftover passion fruit puree in the freezer. I did NOT like the mousse preparation.  How the hell can you heat 1/3 c cream and then temper egg yolks and cornstarch into it?  I immediately had a brick of scrambled eggs the second I poured the tempered egg yolks back into the pot.  So I had to do it again, but let it cool slightly before adding the tempered eggs.

The outcome is divine… I’m glad I decided to use passion fruit instead of chocolate, because the chocolate elements gave it enough of a chocolaty taste.  I also could not find the gavottes (lace crepes) and used Rice Krispies instead.  Strangely, that ended up being one of my favorite elements to this dessert!  The wafer thin crisp layer was a very nice addition to the center of the soft mousse.  Nice choice for this month’s challenge!  Can’t wait to see what is up next month!