Lizzie D. Wysong
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Buche de Noel 

12/29/2014

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Buche de Noel
My projects almost always start on a whim. Ambitious whims, more often than not, fueled by pride and an unwavering belief in success. This year's holiday whim was to make a buche de noel. I had never made a buche de noel before, nor had I ever attempted meringue mushrooms, and the one time I previously tried a roll-up cake, it didn't go so well. But none of that deterred me, for I was determined to make the most excellent buche de noel anyone had ever seen. 

And you know what? I did. 

Despite some frustrating hiccups during the preparation and assembly, the overall result was stunning, if I may say so myself. (Because I am, and will continue to do so. I was, and am, immensely pleased for having done this.) 
Buche de Noel
But of course, me being me means that this was no ordinary buche de noel. While the traditional ones are an actual roll of sponge cake around a ganache or frosting center, I decided to make mine out of layer upon layer of crepes. Why? you ask. Because does one spiral a tree-limb make? No. Absolutely not. Trees have rings! Lots and lots and lots of rings. And the best way to achieve this faux-ring look? Lots and lots of thin layers. Hence, crepes. It was a stroke of genius, and one full heartedly supported by my husband, who does not like cake. 
Crepe Log
Well since the rings themselves were so important to me, so were the colors. I did a traditional crepe batter, unflavored, and in between them spread a peanut butter filling that I made by mixing peanut butter with butter and powdered sugar. I then rolled the crepes on top of one another, overlapping each a little to keep them from slipping. I then trimmed it and let it rest in the fridge so it would hold its shape. 
Crepe Log Assembly
The other components of this cake were little meringue mushrooms and a bed of sprouted chia seed grass. Yes, you read that right. Sprouted chia seed grass. I made an actual forest floor for my log to rest on. Chia seeds are immensely easy to sprout, and although mine did not quite open as much as I thought they would, it still worked. 

The mushrooms did end up looking how I imagined, but they were by far the most troublesome pieces of this whole adventure. I live in Washington, where it is nearly always damp, which is the enemy of good meringues. They constantly fell apart, or started going gooey, and the tops kept sliding off the bottoms, despite the little ganache glue I used to keep them together. But honestly, they looked nice for the pictures, and that was all that mattered. 
Mushroom Meringue
Mushroom and Chia Grass
The frosting was a simple chocolate ganache, spread unevenly like a rough bark. The branch and the mushrooms were attached with a little more ganache, and some finely shredded unsweetened coconut made a nice bed of snow, followed by a dusting of powdered sugar. 

It was a perfect Christmas dessert, and we enjoyed it in front of a roaring fire with glasses of champagne. When I asked Reid if he would rather have had real cake, he said no, and that he would choose crepes over cake every time. 

So here is to a project I can be proud of, one I wasn't sure I could pull off, but did. And here is to already thinking about next year's. Cheers! 
Buche de Noel
And Merry Christmas/Holidays to all! I hope this season has treated you well and I look forward to moving into the New Year with you. 
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Icing on the Cookie

8/6/2011

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Have you ever spent the entire day in the kitchen? I have. There is an upcoming class at work that will involve me helping little kids decorate Spider-Man cookies, so I needed to know how to actually do that. Now, I've decorated cookies before, but never like this. This is like professional decorating. It involves a ton of work and something called royal icing. 

I took some tips from over at Bake at 350 and set to work. First I made a basic sugar cookie dough, which I had chilled the night before. I rolled it out, cut it to bits, and baked them. A co-worker lent me some fun sea creature shapes, which made this all totally worth it.  I also discovered that while one baking sheet is in the oven you should put the next batch of cookies in the freezer. This helps them to not spread as much while they bake. 

After all my cookies were finished I made the royal icing, divided it, colored it, and set to work piping outlines. 
Picture
Outlined octopus, including polka dots to be filled! I was very proud of this guy.
Picture
All of my outlined cookies. I only did two colors because it is much easier to work with and I only had two pastry bags.
Picture
Outlined whale! I thought I would give him a little personality.
After outlining everything I took more royal icing, divided it, coloured it again, and added some water. This creates an icing that will spread over your cookie then dry in a nice, flat sheet. It's called "flooding" and it is pretty entertaining and also the hardest part of this whole thing. 
Picture
My post-flooding whale. I tried to get a little fancy with his spout.
Picture
Wanted to try out a few different techniques for making patterns in the icing. I thought this guy turned out really well.
Picture
These two are my favourite octopuses. Notice the guy on the bottom there is the same as in the first picture. His dots came out quite nicely. The best way to make designs though, is to wait until the base colour has set a little then go back and add the other colouring. I used the bottom of a bamboo skewer and just dipped it in. There wasn't any bleeding and all the dots came out round and flat. 
Picture
My two favourite turtles.
Picture
All my hard work! If you will take a moment you might even see my seahorse "horse" and Lis's baker whale. After you finish doing all the designs they have to sit out for a really long time so the icing will fully dry. 

If this hadn't been fun and a good way to test my artistic abilities it might not have been worth it. I didn't leave the kitchen for a good 7 hour period and my neck really hurt from craning over these things while trying to ice them. But now that I can be proud of the end result I am anxious to try again. I'm thinking it will be a quarterly project. There were a few issues with my icing that I want to try and work out. But for the moment my roommates and I are just enjoying having cute things to munch on. 
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