Day 0

• Heat the smaller portion (225g) heavy cream until simmering then place the cinnamon sticks and star anise pieces into the cream. Cover the bowl, place it into the fridge and let them infuse for min 1 hour, overnight is even better

Day 1

Prepare the Cinnamon whipped ganache

• Remove spices from the cream, measure it and fill it up with cream again to reach 225g (the spices will "drink" some cream overnight)
• Place Callebaut WhiteChocolate (callets) into a bowl (or chop high quality white chocolate into small pieces)
• Soak gelatin into cold water
• Heat the previously infused 225g cream until simmering, mix gelatin sheet in and pour it over the chocolate
• Let the chocolate cream mixture set for a minute until chocolate gently melts then stir together or hand blend
• Once mixture slightly cools to room temp stir in rest of the cold cream (450g)
• With the help of a food processor grind 1 cinnamon stick into tiny pieces, fold into ganache
• Cover the top of the ganache with plastic wrap and refrigerate for minimum 4 hours, ideally overnight

Prepare the apple compote insert

• Soak gelatin sheets into cold water
• Cook all ingredients together for 10 minutes then mix in gelatin and pour compote into the insert mould. Freeze overnight

Day 2

Bake the sponge

• Pre-heat oven to 180C / 356F
• You will need a 24x6cm sponge layer in the recipe. I recommend to bake the sponge in a small tray (mine is 27x17cm) then cut out the required sponge layer after cake is cooled
• Cream room temp butter with icing sugar until fluffy, mix egg in and whip it for a few more minutes. Sift in flour, salt and spice, fold the mixture together then pour cake batter into your prepared baking tin and bake for 10 minutes

Assembling the Cake

• Take ganache out of the fridge and in a stand mixer whip it for a minute or two until it reaches a fluffy, pipeable consistency. Make sure, you do not over whip the mixture as it can break
• Move whipped ganache into a piping bag and pipe ¾ of it into the Buche mould
• Take apple insert out of the freezer and place it into the middle of the piped ganache. Pipe more ganache around making sure that there is no "hole" in the mixture
• Finish with placing a 24x6cm layer of sponge on top of the ganache. Freeze the cake in the mould overnight

Day 3

Bake the crumble

• Pre-heat oven to 180C / 356F
• Cream all ingredients together for a minute or two then spread it over on parchment paper. With the help of a spatula arrange the crumble pieces in a way that you will get smaller and bigger pieces too
• Bake for 12-15 minutes, fold the crumble mixture in the baking tray at every 5 minutes so it bakes evenly without one part burning
• Let the crumble cool to room temp before using it

Prepare the deer decoration

• Temper Callebaut WhiteChocolate (callets) and spread it over a sheet of silicone baking mat in 1-2mm even layer. Dust with cocoa powder
• At the perfect moment, when chocolate is already hardening but not too hard yet, cut out 4 deers with the help of a cookie cutter. Let the deers further set in the fridge until using them

Glazing (optional)

• Glaze the cake when it is frozen. I used Silikomart mirror glaze in this recipe that is a quick and hassle-free glazing option. Heat 1 jar of glaze up to 37 C and pour it onto the frozen cake. The cake is totally fine with or without glaze.

Decorating the cake

• Place the cake onto a tray you plan serving from. Apply crumble around the cake then carefully place 2-2 deers on each side