The Buche de Noel cake comes from an old European tradition of burning a huge log at the winter solstice to end the year and bring good luck, and later during the Christmas season to celebrate Christmas. It’s a little unclear when exactly people started making cakes instead of burning giant logs, but it seems to be connected to houses and fireplaces becoming smaller. The French name and the use of thinly rolled sponge cake points to 19th century France. In any case, at some point, people started to replace their wood yule logs with delicious cakes and now everyone can enjoy them!