This was the cake that almost ended the project. I was 95% certain I could not pull it off. And, so, I have to confess, I cheated a little... there were a few minor modifications, just so I could get through it.
I don't know if you've ever tried to make a Buche de Noel, but my recommendation is: don't. It's the most time-consuming, difficult cake ever. I devoted 6 hours of my life to this cake, and that's without the stupid meringue mushrooms (details to come). Many tears were shed, expletives shouted, and items covered in chocolate (the cake book was nearly a casualty, but I managed to dry it out, so aside from a section full of spotty butter stains, it lives on).
My adventure began with a week-long search for a jelly roll pan. I scoured grocery stores, Targets, and facebook friends for something labeled "jelly roll pan" until finally Tim told me he had one. When I went to pick it up, he handed me a cookie sheet. Apparently, a jelly roll pan is just a cookie sheet with sides. Tragically, his was too small, but conveniently, my mother had just bought me a super fancy giant cookie sheet the last time she visited. Success #1: did not have to buy new pan.
The cake part of a Yule Log is deceptively simple: mix dry stuff, mix wet stuff, beat egg whites, combine everything, pour into pan lined with parchment paper, bake. It's a good way to start off because the ease of making the cake, which you would guess would be the primary component of, well, a cake, gives you hope that maybe, just maybe, you can accomplish this nonsense. But immediately upon taking the cake out of the oven, the fun begins.
The hot cake needs to be covered with plastic wrap, and then a damp kitchen towel, and then inverted onto a cooling rack... which is quite an adventure with a lava-hot pan. Then everything--cake, parchment paper, plastic wrap, and towel, all need to be rolled up together and allowed to cool. I decided during this process that cake is really not meant to be rolled. The surface of my cake was covered with tons of little fault lines, like some sort of earthquake had gone through. But it never tore completely. Success #2, I guess.
While the cake was cooling, I started on the espresso cream filling. I don't own an espresso maker, so espresso was out of the question. I worried that coffee might not be strong enough, though. Fortunately, I had seen a previous coworker and his wife the night before, and they had given me Turkish coffee to use with the Turkish coffee set they had previously given me for my birthday. I figured Turkish coffee was pretty darn strong, so it should suffice in the absence of espresso. If you want to substitute Turkish coffee, however, make sure it's not the first time you've ever made Turkish coffee. Three attempts later, I ended up with something that was not quite authentic-looking or tasting Turkish coffee but would just have to do, because I was tired of trying to make it work. Finished the filling... but really more failure than success. Moved onto the frosting--a Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting... which is exactly what it sounds like: some crazy combination of meringue and buttercream. But it was actually the easiest part of the cake to make. Success #3.
Then cake assembly. It was during this process I decided I would never again make a Yule Log. It sounded easy enough: unroll cake, spread filling on cake, re-roll cake. The problem is, all that filling spread on the cake doesn't exactly want to fit inside when the cake is rolled up. And it has to go somewhere. Which was all over my arms, my shirt, the towel the cake had been rolled in, the counter, and the floor.
I was quite literally up to my elbows in espresso cream filling. Commence tears. I sort of wanted to just quit and throw the whole cracking, espresso cream-bleeding cake out. But I had spent way to much time at this point, so I just sort of made a tube out of the cake and threw it in the fridge to chill appropriately. Liz: 3. Cake: 2.
Thankfully, frosting covers all sins. Once I spread a thick layer of fantastic meringue buttercream frosting over the cake, I shaped and smoothed it and ended up with something that actually did resemble a white log. I just had to hope people would be too focused on the tasty deliciousness of the cake to examine the inside too closely. Success #4.
Now for the major cheating: decorating. Apparently, according to recipes by Martha Stewart and Julia Child, you are supposed to make baked meringue mushroom shapes to decorate the "log" and attach them with melted chocolate. This requires pastry bags, two different sizes of tips, patience and artistic talent. None of which I have. I angsted over how I would accomplish these mushrooms all week. Finally, I just said forget it. I dusted the log with cocoa powder to make it brown and used green sugar crystals to make patches of "moss." It really did look like a log. Just a less fancy log. Whatever. Logs shouldn't be fancy anyway. They're logs. At least it was FINALLY done.
I took it to a holiday party Bree and her husband were hosting that evening. Despite its lack of beauty and correctness, it was a huge hit. Everyone loved it. It was gratifying to know that all that work had paid off, but not gratifying enough for me to ever go through this process again, so I told everyone to enjoy it now because it'd be the only one I'd ever make.
A girl from my program loved the cake and took the leftovers home. I wasn't there to see it, but apparently she forgot that she had placed it on the seat of the car and sat on it. She texted me about it, and at that point I just laughed hysterically. A fitting end for that cake, I think. She did say after she had finished the rest that even completely flat, it was still delicious.
I am ready for some easy cakes now. This one was just rough. Hopefully the Christmas cakes will be a bit more relaxing. It's hard to be filled with holiday spirit when you're covered in espresso cream filling and swearing at a cake.
This week's cake was a gingerbread cake. As most people know, the gingerbread used to make gingerbread houses is actually not delicious at all, because it has to be tough to provide structural stability. So Dr. Robinson found a recipe for this cake, which is as soft and spicy as you imagine gingerbread should be. It's full of interesting ingredients: ground and crystallized ginger, molasses, black pepper, dark brown sugar. It was easy to make (a welcome break after the last cake debacle)--the toughest part was chopping the crystallized ginger. It smelled delicious while baking, and came out moist and spicy and excellent--particularly when served with Great Lakes Christmas Ale Ginger Snap ice cream. Yum!
In this chapter, Dr. Robinson talks about the end of two family traditions: the family vacation to a cottage in Michigan, because the cottage owners decided to stop renting it out, and the last gingerbread house building party, because her daughters were less enthusiastic and outgrowing the tradition. This year, I too am feeling the end of family traditions. I used to love Christmas time, and our own unique family routine: dinner and family presents Christmas Eve, then Santa's gifts Christmas morning followed by an afternoon of movies. Church Christmas morning when I was younger, then Midnight Mass when we were old enough to stay up. Way too many types of Christmas cookies. But things change: new travel requirements, financial concerns, houses, churches, relationships--I feel like I am struggling to hold onto the traditions that we used to have, desperate to not let them slip away. But sometimes change has to happen. Who knows if I will even come back to Cleveland next year? When you have to make room in your life for someone else, there must be compromise, which automatically leads to change. I know that I need to let go and allow new traditions to form. It's just hard--it solidifies the transition into real adulthood.
