Adventures in Holiday Baking
This is how not to make a Buche de Noel. The allure of the Buche de Noel first started when I was 11 or 12 years old. The French bakery next door to the store my dad was a partner in sent over a Buche as a holiday gift to the store. I was a seasonal gift wrapper at the time on weekends. One taste of the cake and I was entranced. As the holidays neared, I asked my dad if he could purchase one to bring home for Christmas Eve. He returned home to say he didn’t get it because it cost $40 and this was when $40 was worth a lot more than it is today. And so began the allure of the Buche de Noel. I never had a taste of one again, not even when I was living as a student in Paris during the holiday season.
I thought this year was a good of a time as any to make one. Knowing the baking and assembly process is not for the novice, I planned to bake a trial run last weekend, baking the cake on Sunday and assembling it on Monday night. The above photo is the result of my attempt, severely hurting my baking pride and any hopes I had of declaring a successful Buche. Oh well. I salvaged the coffee buttercream to ice a basic chocolate cake.
