Call Your Cardiologist

 
Unlike my last post, this one is for about something that is most definitely not good for your heart. Or your waistline. But here it is nonetheless:



A Buche de Noel!!!

Erik has been wanting to make one of these for a while now, and so we used his office's holiday party as an excuse to try this baby out. I will admit I had low expectations, because of all the steps and because you have to roll it, the prospect of which scared me just a bit. But I guess our success is a testament to the excellent recipes we used that it all turned out well. (Well, except for the first attempt at buttercream frosting...) In fact, the hardest part of this whole thing was finding the right sized cookie sheet! But we did, and so we proceeded.

Because all the recipes are already online, and because it's late, I will just post the links.

For the cake and filling we used this Jacques Pepin recipe.

I started following the buttercream frosting recipe, which is sort of a classic French buttercream, and I'm not quite sure what I did, but something went wrong and my eggs fell out of emulsion, and so I had runny egg yolks and clumps of butter that would not blend. I didn't really want to try the same recipe again lest it fail a second time, so I turned to Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa for her chocolate buttercream recipe, which I just happened to see her make on her show the other day while I was elliptical-ing away. (Finding decadent recipes while on the elliptical seems to be my new thing these days). Anyway, the recipe worked like a charm and holy cow, but it is delicious! If you use this recipe though, cut it down to just a third, because that will make more than enough icing for a yule log.

Ina Garten's AMAZING Chocolate Buttercream

(I also just noticed when I posted this link that I inadvertently used only half the amount of chocolate that I was supposed to, but to no ill effect....oh well!)

Next time I might attempt meringue mushrooms and save some frosting to make green leaves, but on this our first attempt we did basic. But I think it is going to mm mm good tomorrow!