A lovely presentation! This cake was a bit sweet to my personal liking, however others did enjoy it. A friend who is a professional baker said it was very good. A few points: * An "airplane bottle" size of Tia Maria liquor had exactly the 3 TBSP needed for the recipe. * I substituted 'sugar in the raw' rather than white sugar for the cake batter and it worked out fine. (I used regular sugar for filling/icing). * Since most "bakers chocolate" in my area comes in 1/2 oz squares rather than 1 oz., I wasn't sure about how many to use but I stuck with the ounces in the recipe rather than number of squares and it was fine. I rarely bake, but followed the directions and found the cake easy to make and decorate. I would have liked to add the meringue mushrooms, but ran out of time. The cake made a nice presentation. The only thing I would have preferred personally is a lighter, less sweet filling (the cream cheese filling was about as sweet as a can of cake icing that you buy at the store and I'm not used to it). I look forward to making this again, perhaps adjusting for a less sweet filling/icing (chocolate whipped cream?) and giving myself more time to have fun with decorating the log with meringue mushrooms, chocolate shavings, etc. I found that the confectioners sugar has to be sprinkled on the log immediately before serving as it soaks right into the icing otherwise.

I just made this recipe for Christmas. I followed the recipe exactly and I was disappointed. The cake itself was dry and didn't roll - it broke so I layered it instead. The cream cheese frosting was way too sweet for our family, and one day later there is still half a roll left. I would not use this recipe again.

Great recipe! I used chocolate ganash for the frosting because I like th bark look better.

Perfect ratios and the directions are great. I have made other yule logs in the past, but this is the recipe I will use from now on. I made 2 smaller "logs" so the cooking time was shorter, but if you follow the directions, it will roll perfectly. Also because I did the two smaller logs I had to make more frosting...not that I minded licking the beaters :)

I agree with CanniliEater's viewpoint - keep the cream cheese for bagels and cheesecake. There seems to be a real cream cheese rage. It turns up as an ingredient in many recipes. My birthday is at Christmas and my traditional birthday cake was a buche de noel, either store bought or lovingly made by my aunt, an excellent baker and cake decorator. She used a good butter cream icing and embellished the finale presentation with either German marzipan mushrooms from the German deli or with a sprig of ceramic mushrooms saved from year to year. You can tell I'm really nostalgic about buche de noel! Today my birthday cake of choice is an almond cake filled with almonds and marizpan - bought at the Dutch food specialty store. I'm about to try your recipe with a few adjustments. Thanks for the recipe and the memories.

Very good! Looked sooo pretty. I used brewed coffee instead of coffee liqueur, and it still had a lovely flavor. Thanks!!

All I can say is "WOW!" I made this for our Christmas Day dinner, and it knocked people out! Chocolaty and creamy, truly decadent! (I garnished with the Meringue Mushrooms from this site, also a "keeper" recipe."

This recipe was excellent. A couple of additions I made, first, I added chocolate sauce on top of the cake prior to rolling and second instead of using the frosting inside of the cake, I put whipped heavy cream on top of the chocolate sauce and then rolled it and placed the frosting on top. Yummy!

I can only rate and comment on the cake part because I used a whipped cream filling and a stovetop chocolate frosting recipe (from Allrecipes). The cake tastes great, but compared to other roll cake recipes I've made this was harder to work with. A little extra care and lots of frosting hides most defects.

excellent! I've been playing with different fillings but it tastes great and lookd good. I found (by accident) thatyou can get a more realistic bark look if you do the final frosting touches with your fingers.

too sweet

Simple, savory and sweet! I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out perfect. Thank you for sharing your recipe!

This was exactly what I've been looking for for years. We traditionnally have a buche (or yule log) for Christmas, and I've tried many recipes before I reached what I was expecting with this one. It is so easy too. It took me less than one hour to have this one ready on my serving plate (if not for refrigeration time, of course). I used Bailey's as coffee liqueur, and its taste came out fine.

It was okay. The cake broke when I tried to roll it. The filling didn't stay in and I had a lot of extra. We don't eat things that are overly sweet, so the filling/frosting was too sweet for my family and started to make us feel sick.

The instructions are clear and the taste devine. I recommend Starbucks Coffee Liquor! A new holiday favorite.

I made this for a work party...everyone thought I got it at a bakery. Tasted great, looked great, and was surprisingly easy to make.

Really tasty, easy to make, excellent flavor. It also freezes well.

Not a bad recipie, i changes the Coffee liqueur to a sweet rum to give it a warmer taste. We use this cake as the "kick off" for the night that all our guests arrive. Still looks appitizing even after you cut a piece off.