It’s time to reveal this month’s challenge! The daring bakers have been occupied with churning out Yule Logs this entire month!

To be honest, I had a hunch that December’s challenge would involve something that relates to the holiday season, and the yule log was one of those things I secretly hoped Lis and Ivonne would pick. I remember checking the DB’s blog every hour hoping to see the challenge posted hehe..

Although I faced many problems, the making of the yule log was rather fun. Firstly, I thought my buttercream looked pretty okay until I added the rum and espresso mixture. It curdled!!! I went to the DB blog to check if others had the same problem, but because I made it slightly earlier then the rest, I couldn’t find any help there (turns out that many of us has had the same problem!). I went on to google for tips and advices on handling buttercream but couldn’t find fault with what I was doing. In the end, I decided to leave this batch of buttercream as it is by the side and work on the other parts of the logcake.

 

The genoise I made was a chocolate one. The genoise went pretty well and I was able to roll it up without breaking it. I used a light chocolate cream to fill the genoise, so as not to overpower the taste of coffee from the buttercream which will be used to cover the log.

After I was done with the genoise, I went back to the buttercream and gave it a whip hoping I would see a miracle and not to send this batch to the bin. It worked!! Yes!!! I did see my miracle forming up before my eyes pleasantly! =)

My other problem was the marzipan mushrooms. I wasn’t keen on making the meringue mushrooms because of the humid weather (it’s been raining all month long here). Hence, I decided to go with making the marzipan. I didn’t have any almond paste, and decided to make the paste from scratch using the recipe Tartelette found. Sifting the almond flour was a nasty and annoying chore because I hate the smell of almonds! While I had no idea what the consistency of a real almond paste should be, the mixture I got was no where near paste-like. It was very runny. I added in more icing sugar (yucks!) and more…and more… At one point, I told myself I am so not eating the marzipan. The marzipan shall remain just as a decoration on the cake, and not served on anyone’s plate. You can see that my marzipan mushrooms are rather shiny because of the excess water. I just could not bring myself to adding anymore icing sugar. I got the marzipan to a state where it could hold it’s shape and stopped at that.

The log was covered with buttercream and bark lines were created using fork and dusted a bit of cocoa powder. The marzipan mushrooms were placed around the bottom of the log. The Christmas decorations I bought from Phoon Huat to add the last touch to the log.

Now the verdict….the taste was nice, but nothing to wow at. I felt it was quite a common taste, a taste you can find in any bakery. The log was by itself great, but with so many logcakes on sale this season, this recipe won’t make a cut above the rest. With this in mind, I think I’ll stick to buying the logcakes from a bakery and save myself some trouble.Nonetheless, this was a fun and challenging recipe that took 5 hours of sweat and panic to complete! I’m glad I managed to work with both buttercream and genoise cake in this challenge, two things I have yet to put myself to test with. Thanks Lis and Ivonne!~

Hope you guys and gals had a great time making your yule logs!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!