It's Christmas!

Isn't it? I'm pretty sure it is, because I made a beautiful Buche de Noel yesterday, and that's definitely not a summer dessert.

Buche de Noel is the easiest cake I've ever made. It's made from a half sheet of basic genoise, spread with Swiss buttercream, then rolled up. Then you cut off a bit from one end to make a branch, frost the whole thing, decorate, and voila! It's Christmas!


I especially like the meringue mushrooms.



It snowed! Merry Christmas!

Petit fours

Today in my cake class, we made petit fours glace. They're harder than they look, although they don't look very good in the pictures. I had to decorate the lumpy ones, because a classmate and I were washing dishes when everyone started decorating, and by the time someone called us all the good petit fours were gone. Oh well, there's lots more almond cake in the freezer, so I can make more later.

They are made with 3 layers of almond cake sandwiched together with apricot jam. On top of the final layer is a thin layer of marzipan. Then the whole thing is coated with fondant. It's a lot of work for something so tiny.

Also, they are waaaaaaaay too sweet for me. Now, I love sweets, and I could eat sugar right out of the bag with a spoon, but I could only swallow one bite of one of these little gems, much to my surprise. I tried to eat another bite, and just couldn't do it.