Daring Bakers challenge: Buche de noël

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge, is, appropriately, a bûche de noël (a yule log: cake wrapped rolled and decorated to resemble the log of a tree). The recipe was developed from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri and features a plain genoise cake (which I elected to flavor with chocolate) with buttercream frosting. The additional twist: the log had to be decorated with either marzipan or meringue mushrooms. I was up for the challenge, and, as usual, left the baking to the very last moment. Next month I swear I’ll get a head start on whatever is thrown our way! Looking at the recipe, all seemed straightforward except for the mushrooms (the recipe, btw, called for 48 mushrooms, I’m still not sure why!). I am no stranger to buttercream so that seemed like a snap. I’ve never attempted genoise cake, but the Bostoni cream pie of two challenges ago called for a chiffon cake that is not that dissimilar from a genoise cake, and that turned out beautifully so I figured if I broke down the components and made the recipe over a three day period, leaving the most time and room for error for the mushrooms, the recipe would be easy enough to accomplish.

I was dreading the mushrooms, but surprisingly they turned out to be to be fairly easy and not terribly time-consuming (I went with meringue). They were even, well, pretty cute. I figured I’d licked the worst part. I made the buttercream on day two and loved the coffee / rum flavoring. I could have eaten the frosting alone but I held back and pushed on. Then it was on to the cake. Overconfident at this point, I decided to make two cakes. I certainly had enough mushrooms to decorate a small army of cakes. This morning, I embarked on the cakes. I whipped, flavored, folded, poured, leveled and baked. I followed all the instructions to a T. Everything looked ok. At least, there was no obvious sign of impending doom. I read and re-read the cautionary note that warned that over-baking would result in a dry cake that would be difficult to roll. I was committed to not over-baking.

And that, my friends, is where the happy story ends. My cake never quite reached that perfect balance of spongy-most but not over baked. It sagged in the middle. It crisped on the edges. I was never able to resuscitate one of the cakes. The other, I coaxed. I cajoled. Gosh darned I was going to get that baby to roll. R stepped in to talk me down: “Just get it to a state you can photograph,” he offered. I frosted. I decorated. It was a dry, sad, decidedly un-springy cake. I stepped back and looked at my creation objectively. It really didn’t LOOK that bad. I photographed. I was bummed. There was no time and no energy left to try it again. Maybe it was the fact that I doubled the batter. Maybe it was the fact that I baked the two cakes simultaneously. Maybe it was the fact that my oven is well, really cheap, and never held a constant temperature in its life.

As every good Daring Baker should say, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Joyeux Noël, everyone. I look forward to many new cooking and baking adventures in the new year.

For the recipe and more details, please see the hosts' (and the Daring Bakers founders) websites, Lis (La Mia Cucina) and Ivonne (Cream Puffs in Venice). Thank you for hosting and for the challenge!