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!

#SeptTextileLove26 Day11

#SeptTextileLove #STL26Day11 ‘Language’ …when symbols in stitch say more than words … my wonderful Wednesday Makers group has undertaken a community peace project ‘Petals for Peace’ - stitched prayer flags depicting flowers , symbolic of peace. . We have stitched many ourselves and other stitchers from all over Australia have also been contributing as an impactful counter to the hate speech which seems to have pervaded our world currently - the powerful language of stitch.

#SeptTextileLove Day 12

#SeptTextileLove #STL26Day12 ‘Friendship’ … This is a story of friendship based on the love of textiles and fibre art . Gallerist and artist, Anne Kempton and I have been friends for 15 years , meeting when we had both retired from ‘ top’ jobs in a government department and a high school respectively. Neither of us were the retiring types - Anne was establishing the first commercial textile art gallery in Australia and I was looking for a creative direction. We discovered we were both driven by a sense of social justice and community and shared similar artistic aspirations . Since then, we have co- curated exhibitions, collaborated on many projects. supported community art and women’s causes, and grown in our individual artistic expression - Anne includes more stitching in her work and she has had a more painterly influence on mine . Moreover, this friendship is multifaceted, deep and personal and one I value and treasure . Thank you, Anne.

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...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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