Only 9 days left before Christmas! Aren't you excited??? Honestly, I am! Christmas has always been my most favorite Holiday for so many reasons...and that includes the fact that it's my birthday! And this year, I'll get to celebrate it again with my only brother! It has been five years since we last spent Christmas together, so I am truly ecstatic about it! For me, nothing makes Christmas merrier (and my birthday happier) than celebrating it with the ones truly close to my heart! I'm sure it's how it works for you as well. :)
Anyway, before I totally get carried away with excitement, let me share with you what I made for this month's Baking Partners Challenge. Just like last year, the theme for December is Christmas Cake. If last year I made Neapolitan Christmas Cake, this time it's this gorgeous Bûche de Noël from Williams-Sonoma as suggested by Tanusree of Ma Niche. We were given five recipes to choose from, but this one seemed to be the easiest to make so I went for it! The cake didn't turn out as soft as I expected it to be, but as a whole, this Bûche de Noël was awesome! I'll be making it again for our Christmas Eve dinner, but I guess I will have to use the sponge cake recipe that I normally use.
A Bûche de Noël or Yule Log is a traditional dessert served on Christmas, especially in France and several other francophone countries and former French colonies. It is traditionally made from a genoise or other sponge cake baked in a large Swiss roll pan, frosted, rolled to form a cylinder, and frosted again on the outside. The most common combination is a basic yellow sponge cake, frosted and filled with chocolate buttercream; however, many variations on the traditional recipe exist, possibly including chocolate cakes, ganache and espresso or otherwise-flavored frostings and fillings. Bûches are often served with a portion of one end of the cake cut off and set on top of the cake or protruding from its side to resemble a chopped off branch, and bark-like texture is often produced in the buttercream for further realism. This is often done by dragging a fork through the icing. These cakes are often decorated with powdered sugar to resemble snow, tree branches, fresh berries, and mushrooms made of meringue.
Bûche de Noël is both festive and delicious which makes it perfect for the season! If you are like me who's always in the mood for baking during the holidays, you should try it!
Bûche de Noël is both festive and delicious which makes it perfect for the season! If you are like me who's always in the mood for baking during the holidays, you should try it!
