How To Prep (And Store) That Yule Log Ahead Of Your Holiday Dinner

For many, the holiday season means making a Yule log cake as the dessert of choice — after all, Yule log cakes are a Christmas tradition. For anyone unfamiliar, the dessert, which is also known as a bûche de Noël, is a rolled up sponge cake filled with cream and topped with chocolate frosting. It's made to resemble a log. To find out all of the best tips and tricks for preparing the cake ahead of time — and storing it — Daily Meal spoke with award-winning pastry chef Lasheeda Perry, otherwise known as "The Queen of Flavor."

Perry recommends making the Yule log in stages, starting with the filling (which may be buttercream, mousse, or curd). The next day, make the sponge cake, add the filling, and roll it up. She continues, "Once you fill your sponge and roll the cake, you can actually freeze that for a week or so — just make sure you cover it very well. You can decorate it frozen as well!"

Of course, if you feel up to it, you can make the filling and the cake on the same day. Then, since decorating is easily the most fun part, you can save that for another day to ensure that you have plenty of energy to make it look as festive and beautiful as possible.

A Yule log cake is just one of the many Christmas cakes that will give you a taste of the holiday spirit, so it's always good to plan ahead. If you decide to hold off on decorating your Yule log cake until the day of your festivities, know that it will keep for about a week in the freezer, according to pastry chef Lasheeda Perry. If you prefer to decorate ahead of time as well, that's definitely possible. But your decorations will affect how long the dessert will keep.

"If you're just glazing your Christmas Yule log," Perry says, "that can hold in a refrigerator for a few days." She adds that you should try to store it in a box — this way the glaze or icing will not get messed up from touching something else in your refrigerator.

People who choose to decorate their Yule log with more elaborate fixings or garnishes need to keep the dessert's shelf life in mind. Perry explains, "If you're putting meringues on there and macarons or something, those types of items get soggy once they're refrigerated, so they don't hold up as well." If this is your plan, then it may be best to wait on the decorating until the last minute — but just having the base all ready to go will save you a lot of time in the long run.