Buche de Noel/ by Kathleen Gibbons, Palace Line Cook
This year I decided that rather than bringing wine to my friends’ parents’ houses for Christmas, I would make the dessert. This year I made three Buche de Noel cakes (also known as Yule Logs) for each of my friends’ families: chocolate sponge cake with almond mocha frosting and chocolate and meringue mushrooms. These cakes are beautiful, delicious, and intricate, and easily one of my all time least favorite things to make. Every step to making the dessert is easy in theory: make sponge cake, make meringue mushrooms, make frosting, frost cake, roll cake, decorate. What’s terrifying is the degree to which each step can go terribly, terribly wrong- dry sponge cake, soggy and broken meringue mushrooms, limp frosting, cracked cake.
I remember watching my mother make these cakes every Christmas when I was younger. I remember the taste of the frosting, the look in her eyes when she was pleased with the way the meringue dried, and the way she dragged a fork across the frosting to look like tree bark. She made it look so effortless, like it was a delight to make. Now I recognize the stress, anger, and exhaustion that was hiding behind happy eyes, big smiles, and holiday well wishes. Including drying time for the meringue, as well as all the baking, cooling, and resting times, three cakes took me over eighteen hours to make.
Luckily, this year’s logs came and went with minimal trouble. When rolling up the sponge cakes to let them cool, I DID roll them width wise instead of length wise, thus leaving me with a very short, very fat final result. But the crowds still went wild and everything was fine. I think the main reason my mother and I sacrifice ourselves to the kitchen in order to make the Yule Logs is simple. We do it for the reaction. The look you get when you put the Buche de Noel on the table in front of friends and family, the way the eyes of your guests roll back into their heads after taking the first bite, the questions like How did you do this? How long did it take you? Are these real mushrooms?? It’s blatantly obvioius how much work goes into a Yule Log, and the people who receive it always acknowledge your effort.
The Buche de Noel is difficult. It can be stressful. It can easily wind up being a catastrophe. But in the end, the people you love will appreciate what you’ve done (or attempted to do) for them. And if your loved ones are really appreciative, you might be able to get out of doing the dishes. It’s worth a shot. Trust me. My kitchen is a disaster right now.
(Photo upper left: sponge cake. Photo upper right: meringue mushrooms. Photo bottom left: finished Buche de Noel.)
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