Woodland Chocolate Log - Tutorial Tuesday

This cute chocolate log would make a fun addition to your Christmas table. It's made much easier by the use of wafer paper log ends

To start you need to bake your chocolate log in a swiss roll (or you can cheat and buy from from the supermarket)

Mix 400g buttercream with 200g of mixed fruits such as glace cherries, raisins etc. You can buy the Christmas cake mix from Bin Inn or the likes.

Spread over your swiss roll and roll up tight

We covered our log with Bakels chocolate truffle, it's quick and easy to use and tastes great.

Then we rolled a layer of Chocolate Satin Ice fondant around the log, placing a circle of fondant on each end to cover the buttercream swirl

Using a PME veining tool  I freehanded a woodgrain effect in to the surface of the fondant.

A small log branch extension was created by hand using a piece of fondant. This extension and the wafer paper log ends were adhered to the cake using edible sugar glue.

To add a festive touch I added some of these ready made fairy toadstools, these hold a special place in my heart. My grandad used to go outside and pick these for me from the garden when I was a little girl. However I couldn't go with him to pick them, as they only grew for him - he must have been right, I checked that garden 100's of  times and never found any myself.

The ivy leaves are created with green fondant dusted with edible dusts. They are cut using ivy plunger cutters, so only take a few minutes to make. These are again adhered with edible glue.