Buche de Noel (Yule Log)

It is now time for one of the fanciest things I know how to make: a buche de Noel.  And I've made plenty of them.  We used to make these every year around this time in high school for French Club, so this recipe also brings back fond memories.  Well, on to it!

The first things you're going to need are 1 C flour, 1/4 C cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt, 3 eggs, 1 C granulated sugar, 1/3 C water, and 1 tsp vanilla.  You're also going to want to grease a 15 x 10 x 1" jellyroll pan, line it with waxed paper, and lightly flour it and preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl, sift together your flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt and set it aside.  And actually sift it together, too; you want to make sure you don't have any flour or cocoa lumps in there.

Before going in the oven

In another bowl, beat the eggs until they're thick and creamy, then beat in the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, on high speed.  Beat in the water and vanilla.  Now fold in the flour mixture with a large rubber spatula (this is why you don't want any flour lumps).  When that's well blended, pour it into your prepared jellyroll pan and bake it for 10 minutes, or until the center springs back when touched.

Mmmmm...towel cake....

While that's in the oven, get a clean dish towel (one you don't plan on using for anything else again), lay it flat on the counter, and dust it lightly with confectioner's sugar.  When the cake is done baking, invert the pan onto the towel and carefully peel off the waxed paper.  Then gently roll the cake up in the towel like a jellyroll and set it on a wire rack to cool for a while.

While your cake is all bundled up and cooling off a bit, it's time to make some cream filling to go inside it!  For this, you'll just need three things: 1 C heavy cream, 1/2 C confectioner's sugar, and 1 tablespoon of either instant coffee (what my recipe actually calls for) or cocoa powder (what I actually use since coffee is not my thing).  I recommend using a glass or metal bowl for this and also putting said bowl and your beaters in the freezer for a little while to chill.  It just makes the whipped-cream-making go faster.  The entirety of the directions for this part of the recipe are as follows: "Beat until stiff."  Go ahead and leave your juvenile comments below.  I have a picture of what this looks like when it's done, but I don't think I'll post it.  It really will be pretty self-evident when you've beaten it enough.  Put it in the fridge when you're done while you make this next part.

We of course are going to need some frosting for this cake.  So, get out 1/4 C butter, 2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate, 2 C confectioner's sugar, 1/4 C milk, and 1/2 tsp vanilla.  Melt together your butter and chocolate.  If you do this in the microwave, I recommend microwaving for about 20 seconds at a time, then stirring around your chocolate, and microwaving for another 15-20 seconds.  It shouldn't take much more than a minute total.  Beat together your sugar, milk, and vanilla, then slowly (or dump it in all at once, like I do) beat in the chocolate.  It'll seem like it's too runny right now, but after it cools a bit it'll thicken up.

Ok, now it's time to put this thing together!  Very carefully unroll your cake.  You don't want it to break.  Spread your chocolate whipped cream on the cake, carefully roll it back up (without the towel this time, which I would hope would go without saying, but you never know), and put it on your serving plate.  Cut off about 1/2 to 1" of one end of the cake, cut out the middle coil, and reform the rest into a smaller coil and stick it on the top of the cake.  This also makes a good opportunity to taste test your masterpiece (hey, you've got to do something with that leftover bit you cut off and you need to make sure your cake is good!).  Now frost that cake!  After you get it frosted, if you want to make it look more "barklike", run a fork along it.  And you're done!  It is now ready to bring to either your library coworkers or the staff of your favorite sushi restaurant down the street from your place of work.  And yes, those are your only two options.  But it could still use a little something extra...something like... MERINGUE MUSHROOMS (see?  I told you there was a point to that recipe)!  Ah, there we go!

And it magically jumped onto a different plate!

You can also sprinkle some confectioner's sugar over this for "snow", but wait until you're ready to serve it since it'll dissolve into your frosting.  I'd also wait on the meringue mushrooms until then.  The cake needs to be refrigerated (because of the whipped cream), which you don't want to do with your mushrooms.  If they get even a little damp, you'll have a bunch of mushy mushrooms, and no one wants that.

Welp.  That's about it for this recipe.  It may seem a little long and complicated, but it's really pretty quick.  The total amount of time it took me, starting with pulling ingredients out of the pantry and ending with putting the finished cake in the fridge, was just under two hours.  So give it a shot for your next holiday party.  You might just impress someone!

Meringue Mushrooms

With the holiday season upon us, it's time to get into some Christmas baking!  And really, does anything say "Christmas" more than meringue mushrooms?  No, no, bear with me.  This recipe will tie into something else I plan to post later this week.

 The things you'll need to make these delightful confections are 4 large egg whites (use real eggs for this, not the stuff you buy in the little cartons), 1/4 tsp cream of tartar, 3/4 C sugar, 1/4 tsp almond extract (or vanilla, peppermint, whatever flavor you want, really), and 2 ounces of semisweet chocolate.  You'll also want some unsweetened cocoa powder, but that'll come much later.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set that aside.  In a medium glass or metal bowl (not plastic), beat your egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer at high speed until soft peaks form when you lift up the beaters.  This will take a while and your egg whites will look all foamy.  Rather like that picture over to the right.

Turn your mixer back on and gradually add in your sugar, a tablespoon or two at time, until the sugar is completely dissolved and your egg whites now stand in stiff, glossy peaks when you lift up the beaters.  Again, this will take a little while.  Use the picture to the right to give you an idea of what it should look like when done.  Beat in the almond extract. 

Nothing like white on white for a clear picture!

Get out a large pastry bag with a 1/2" plain round tip.  Spoon the meringue into the bag so it's about half full (you don't want to fill up the bag too much or else it'll squooge all over when you squeeze it).  Pipe the meringue onto your parchment-lined baking sheet into little mounds to resemble mushroom caps and stems.  I recommend making more stems than caps, since those tend to break more easily.  Bake these guys for an hour and 45 minutes.  Turn off your oven and leave them in there for another 30 minutes to dry, then remove them from the oven and let them completely cool on a wire rack.


For the rest of this recipe, you might want to relocate to your living room and start a marathon of your favorite tv show (might I recommend Cowboy Bebop?) because the rest of this will take a while (are you detecting a theme with this recipe yet?).  Anyway, with a sharp knife, make a little hollow in each of your "mushroom" caps.  Melt your chocolate into a little dish.  You can do this in the microwave; just nuke it for 15 seconds at a time, stirring it around after each round.  Now spread some chocolate on the underside of each of the caps and stick a stem into each one.  Let these set for at least an hour. 

Some of the tastiest mushrooms you'll ever see!

If you want to, you can really just stop here, but as they are they don't look quite right; they're far too pristine for mushrooms.  So now take a little bit of unsweetened cocoa powder, sprinkle it on top, and rub it in to make your mushrooms look as though they're fresh from the forest floor!  Voila!  You now have a whole bunch of really tasty "mushrooms"!  Store these in an airtight container at room temperature (do NOT store them in the fridge).  They'll last for about a month, but really, it's unlikely that they'll still be around by then.  You can serve these as-is, but like I said up there at the top of this blog, I made them to go with something else.  Tune in later this week to find out what!!!

Vacation, Part 2

I finally nabbed some of the pictures that Christina took while we were in Japan, so here they are!  Let's see if I can remember what everything is...

This first picture was taken at the restaurant Noriko took us that first evening.  It's also one of the few pictures that has me in it, thus allowing me to prove that I was there.





Next up are a couple of pictures from Hase-dera, that Buddhist temple we went to visit in Kamakura (I would also like to point out at this time that Blogger is awful for trying to do any kind of picture layout):

Next up: Yokohama's Chinatown!

Now for another picture that has me in it (taken at the Meiji shrine):











Here's a shot of the Shibuya crossing by the train station.  There are a LOT of pedestrians there.  I'll leave this one big so you can really see it, but a still photo doesn't really do it justice.

And finally, a picture of a shop in Harajuku.  And yes, they sell exactly what you think they do (unless you think they sell condos).

So that's it for the pictures I'll be posting of the trip.  I kind of wish I'd bothered to take more pictures, but I'm pretty happy with the ones that I did get.  Maybe the next time I go (here's hoping for 2013!) I'll have a better camera and I'll, you know, actually use it.

Vacation

I haven't posted in a little while and that's because I've been on vacation.  IN JAPAN!!!!! (yes, it does warrant all those exclamation marks)  I and my friend Christina had been wanting to go visit our other friend, Noriko, who lives in Tokyo for a couple years now and things finally worked out both time-off-wise and financially.  So, off we went the week of Thanksgiving.  It wasn't a very long trip; we left on Monday and came back the following Monday, giving us 5 whole days in Japan.  It was, however, a very fun trip and I very much intend to go back as soon as I can.

I did realize something about myself from this trip, however.  I mean, I'd always know it was true, but with this trip it really hit home: I suck when it comes to taking pictures.  Not that my pictures turned out bad.  Some of them actually look pretty good.  But the whole time I was there, I only took 73 pictures, some of which are duplicate shots when the first one didn't come out very well.  I partially blame my camera.  It's very fussy about trying to focus and can take forever to do so (which is why I didn't ask anyone to take pictures of the three of us) and it eats batteries like crazy.  I'd like to think I'd do better with a newer and better camera, but honestly, I'd probably still be awful about picture taking.  Luckily for me, Christina doesn't share this problem, so when she sends me her pictures, I'll post some of hers here, too.

I have no idea what this is, but it's sooo good!

Big damn roll (half gone)

The first night we were there, Noriko took us to this restaurant whose name I can't remember and we got tasty food, the name of which I also can't remember, but here's a picture of it!  It's pork and bean sprouts.  Reeeeeeally tasty.  We also got one of these that had chicken as well as the biggest damn dragon sushi roll I've ever seen.  Unfortunately, Christina started feeling rather poorly, so she didn't have anything.  More for me!  Though, that sushi roll didn't get finished.  Noriko and I made a valiant effort, but it was just too much.

The next day involved much sleeping on my part (I woke up pretty early, then took a "nap" and didn't get up again until 2:30), which was ok, since Noriko had other things she needed to do that day.  When she got back and everyone was conscious, we went to wander around the Imperial Palace.  The palace buildings and inner gardens aren't open to the public, but the outside grounds are quite lovely. 

 

I'm not really sure what that thing is up above this sentence (some kind of lamp maybe?) but I thought it was pretty neat looking.  Nor do I know what that little building off to the left is, but I thought the old-style architecture in front of the modern city buildings was kind of neat.

Fancy!

Then it was time to head to Asakusa and do some shopping!  But first, a quick trip to a mall for a bathroom break.  While there, I saw these on display.  Again, not sure really what they're for, but they sure are fancy!

Kaminarimon

 One of the most notable features here (and a very popular place to take pictures) is the Kaminarimon.  Once you go through this gate, there are about a million and a half shops lining the street to the temple at the end (Sensō-ji, I think).  Since this was the first day we really went out and did much, and I'm definitely not a big-city girl who's used to large crowds and lots of hustle and bustle, I was pretty overwhelmed here.  That didn't keep me from buying lots of things, though!  Once we got down the street, we got to the big temple, which was pretty cool.  I also got a pretty good view of the Tokyo Sky Tree, which is the tallest tower in the world (though not the tallest structure.

Sensō-ji

Sky Tree

On our trip, we also got to go visit Kamakura, which is about 30 miles or so outside of Tokyo.  While there, we visited one of the temples (Hase-dera, I think) and saw the Daibutsu, a great big bronze Buddha.  It was around here that I started getting super bad about taking pictures, but here are a few that I did manage to get:

 

 



















Later that same day we went to Yokohama's Chinatown where we got dinner, but like I said, I kind of stopped taking many pictures by this point.

Another thing we got to do was go to Sunshine City's 60-story skyscraper (Sunshine 60) and get a panoramic view of Tokyo.  Here are the pictures I took there:

 Tokyo sure is big.

The last two pictures I took were at Meiji Shrine:

Of course, we did a whole lot more than what I've got pictured.  With any luck, Christina will be able to send me some of her pictures soon and I'll be able to post more!  As for now, I've been at this post for about an hour and a half and dinner is just about ready, so I'll talk more about my trip later.