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I have. However, I cheated a bit by baking my cake in a loaf pan and then carving it into a log shape. To decorate, I melted dark chocolate and spread it in a thin layer on wax paper. I put it in the fridge to harden, then broke it off into "bark." It looked beautiful and was incredibly easy.

i'm sad that none of the posted recipes are for the cake pictured above....i want that recipe. My birthday is Christmas Day and this would be a great bday cake for me

dosergirl: You could follow a recipe for any of the cakes above and just ice it with a white buttercream rather than chocolate. You may want to use shortening rather than butter in your frosting to keep it pure white instead of pale cream.

I've done a few, and they are fun to decorate. When I've seen them crack, the roller would just keep on trucking as long as it stayed rolled up, then they'd fill the cracks with frosting. Interestingly, Bobby Flay's latest throwdown was against Francois Payard doing a battle of the Buche--Bobby doing a traditional rolled cake made with walnuts and filled and decorated with maple buttercream, and Payard doing a chilled log using chocolate mousse and several layers including a dacquoise, hazelnet cream, and ganache, then a glossy icing. Both looked awesome! You can, literally, go nuts with the cake, which is often made with nut meal. I loved Flay's idea of using almonds with maple to produce a "traditional American pairing."

We do one every year, and make little mushrooms for it out of meringues. But we've never done a birch buche like this one ... it looks pretty. Will suggest!

I attempted to make one with a classmate in Grade 7 for French class, where we were learning about French-Canadian Christmas traditions. The cake broke in every way possible, though we "glued" it back together with the icing. Nobody in class cared and it was polished off in about 10 minutes.

that cake is gorgeous! i've never attempted one, but with that photo as inspiration i just might have to try!

Apparently 7th grade was the time to make a buche for French class, because that's when I made one, too. Remarkably and improbably, it turned out perfect.

If the writers saw how butchered the RSS feed is when they use non-Ascii characters, they'd choose a different title for these types of posts. I only knew what the post was about by looking at the picture.

I can't be bothered to make an elaborate-looking cake like this around this time of year. There's so much holiday baking to give as gifts as it is. I'd like to try some time, just not at this time of year when I'm hard-pressed to get other things done.

I make one or two every year. I wrote you last year looking for decorations. This year I have ordered and received the adorable Santas and reindeer from Marzipan World.

My favorite recipe is a rolled sponge cake filled with chocolate mousse, iced with chocolate mocha buttercream.

To cut down on the stress this year, I will make the mousse a little ahead of time and freeze it. The cake itself is easy and fast. The buttercream isn't hard, but it makes a mess--shoots all over the place from the mixer.

I do one every year. It started when I was 15 and wanted to try to make one, and it's become a tradition. I fill mine with chocolate mousse (chocolate, cooked meringue, and whipped cream, no yolks) and frost it with a dark fudgy icing. I use a petal/rose tip and pipe lines of varying lengths all over it to give the bark look.
(picture, click to enlarge. I made this one when I was 19, in 2003)

I don't always do mushrooms, but I usually decorate with artificial pine, cranberries, and shell nuts. Oh, and lot's of powdered sugar "snow"

Thanks elizabeth. This will be quiet an undertaking for me even though i bake alot, i have never made something so decorative.

I made one last year for the daring bakers, it was a lot of fun and went down really well. The meringue mushrooms are easier than I thought and SO CUTE!!

Heidz, I also made Buche in French class! I don't recall it being that difficult. We made the buche in a sheet on a jelly roll pan, spread the sheet with buttercream frosting and then rolled it up, placing the seam side down.

I made one in high school for our French class holiday party. I was so exhausted from making it that my mom took pity on me and let me stay home from school. We ate it for breakfast.