Old style yule log recipe

[TuckFrump]

I want to make a yule log like I used to have as a child. (I'm not in the UK anymore).

All the recipes I can see have a buttercream outside. Unless I'm misremembering, the ones I had in the 90s had a hard chocolate outside and the buttercream on the inside.

Does anyone have a recipe they can recommend? Thanks!

Like this? lovelygreens.com/yule-log-cake-recipe/

Is it a Yule log or roulade you're after?
A roulade tends to be a rolled sponge outside with cream/buttercream inside, whereas a yule log has the buttercream on the outside and forced roughly to look like tree bark.
Mary berry does a lovely chocolate roulade

This is MB's

Better recipe image

Thanks everyone.

It definitely wasn't a roulade - although I must make that one, it looks delicious. Thank you @Oneearringlost

It looked like the lovelygreens one, but I'm fairly sure it had a hard outside, not ganache or buttercream. The kind of thing you'd buy at M&S. Maybe it was just textured chocolate to look like a log.

The ones sold in supermarkets years ago were to my recollection just a fairly standard chocolate swiss roll filled with some sort of frosting (ie it never saw butter!) and covered in chocolate flavoured cake covering, some very fancy ones might have had real chocolate but the chocolate cake covering is much easier to use and spreads easier and was probably applied using a textured sheet which was peeled off then if it had a wood effect. The usual brands of this stuff at the moment would be Scotbloc or Homecook. Always used for rice krispie buns too, the taste of our youth!

To replicate I'd say pick a basic chocolate swiss roll recipe, fill with your favourite buttercream recipe or tub of bought frosting and cover with melted chocolate cake covering, it will set hard unlike ganache but you will be able to get a reasonably thin covering as it melts and pours thinly unlike most real chocolates which must be tempered.

While not the yule log shape this product I would say is very close in taste to what you remember. pic