Skip to main content

Christmas Countdown 24 ...Buche de Noel




“Tis the season for rich food - today, I'm dreaming of a Buche de Noel or Yule Log cake.  It is a beautiful sweet creation of cream filled sponge cake, lathered with chocolate meringue icing to look like a log, embellished with meringue mushrooms and marzipan holly leaves, spun sugar cobwebs and any other  delicious decoration to complete the picture of a woodland scene.
 How difficult can this be to make? According to my trusty Good Housekeeping Cookbook, from which I have been cooking since the 1970s -  it seems fairly straight forward quite easy! 
However, others far more accomplished than I say differently…. 
While Julia  [Child] says the buche is simple - just a sheet cake with an Italian Meringue icing - I beg to differ with her. This challenge takes between three and four hours and involves over forty steps. In working through the recipe I previously put together for her The Way to Cook, I saw that there were still areas of unclarity , and so I have tried to remedy that in this recipe. Julia changed her recipe for Buche de Noel several times over the years. In her penultimate master book, From Julia Child’s Kitchen, she gave a recipe that she said was just like the one she did on the French Chef - except for the cake, the filling and the icing… from the blog,Julia, Julie and I , The Joy of Cooking Revisited
 
Julia's Buche de Noel for Christmas
https://njbrown.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/julias-buche-de-noel-recipe-with-improved-directions/
 The idea of a yule log came from the practice of the medieval era when families would burn logs decorated with holly  and ivy. There was a belief that the burnt log’s ashes had medicinal benefits and could even ward off evil and protect against lightning. A French story suggests that in the 1800s, Napoleon banned the lighting of household fires for fear of contributing to ill health. Denied their blazing logs in the fireplace on Christmas eve, cooks celebrated the festive season by baking buche de noel cakes instead. 

Regardless of how ornate  the cake  might be decorated, I doubt that the buche de noel has any of the powers suggested in its history, but it is guaranteed to add centimetres to the waistline, as if by magic…. why worry - it’s Christmas! 



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

#the100dayproject : Inspiring Women Days 1 - 4

#The100DayProject is a *free* global art project that takes place online 🎨 E very year, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of creating. Anyone can participate . ​The idea is simple: choose a creative project, do it every single day for 100 days, and document and share the process online. 2026 is my 8th year of participating. I have stitched daily observations, painted my egg cup collection, collaged postcards and envelopes, written poems, explored colour palettes .... this year I am researching, sketching and stitching 100 inspiring women. Fortunately I purchased a piece of beautiful linen, with preprinted outlines of 100 women ... just one issue - the figures are tiny (height 6cm /2.5 ins) My first week started tentatively ... I thought I would start with Empress Wu, after whom I named my creative activity. This is when I discovered how difficult it is to applique and stitch on these very small figures - I used tweezers to put pieces of fabric down, tried t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks ....  The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and  message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or  my husband or from off cuts gifted to us  from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks.   Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt  or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...
3 comments
Read more

"Temari Or Not Temari?" Tutorial

 Background Information:  Temari (literally translated “hand ball”) is a Japanese folk craft that is alleged to have originated in China and was introduced to Japan five or six hundred years ago. Traditionally, the balls were constructed from wrapped kimono fabric remnants and silk threads. They were made by mothers and grandmothers for children to play with. Nowadays, decorative embroidered temari represent a highly valued and cherished gift symbolizing friendship and loyalty. Recently I've wondered if your don't use traditional techniques whether you should call what you create "temari". That is an ongoing debate but today I share what I do to make a "non-traditional temari".... 1.I start  with a polystrene ball ( traditionally the balls were wound  silk scraps or other organic materials) and begin to wrap with approx 4 ply wool, turning the ball as I wrap.  2. I then wrap another layer of wool in a similar fashion , this time a 3 or 2 ...
8 comments
Read more