make life sweeter!

We're flying to Croatia in a few hours were we'll be spending Christmas and New Year's with my family. Unfortunately we'll only have access to dial-up internet so I won't be able to do any posts :( So you'll just have to wait to see what I made for Christmas...

Happy Holidays everyone!

Another month another Daring Bakers challenge and this time we've been making Yule logs. Daring Bakers founders Ivonne and Lisa are the lovely hosts for this months challenge.
This is the first time that I actully made a Yule log (sort of a Yule log). Even though the idea of making a log/branch shaped cake is not 'me' I loved the opportunity to make genoise, meringue buttercream and assembling the log.
Had to make the buttercream ahead because I didn't have time to do everything in one go with 3 exams last week, a pre-Christmas dinner party and preparations for our trip to Croatia. I had already read about other people's curdled buttercream on the Daring Bakers blog so I was starting to get a tiny bit nervous about making it myself. I read all the tips and made the buttercream according to specifications...and still it curdled! But as I was more or less prepared for this I was able to fix it :) I had read in the Williams-Sonoma Baking that you could warm the bowl of curdled buttercream a bit over a pan of simmering water while whisking it when your buttercream curdled and the bowl felt cold to the touch. I did and it worked! Was so happy that I didn't have to chuck it out! I can tell you that I went to bed with a triomphant smile on my face :) I strayed from a tiny bit from the recipe btw and used dark brown sugar instead of regular. This made the buttercream even better tasting and a bit darker.
Genoise I had made a couple of times before but that was already ages ago. It was easy to make and it smelled wonderfully vanilla-y because I added a generous amount of ground vanilla beans. It was so generous that my hair still smelt like vanilla the next day :D I opted for the 'boring' old vanilla because because I didn't want anything to interfere with the taste of the coffee buttercream (my favourite!). I baked it 10 minutes because it looked pretty golden brown by that time (is it just me or was 400°F a bit high for this type of cake?)
I used one of the tips I read on the Daring Bakers blog to roll the genoise immediately after it came out of the oven. I should be easier to roll because it would be soft and pliable. It sort of worked....but still cracks appeared...nothing that couldn't be fixed with a little buttercream luckily. I left it too cool.
Meanwhile I had a slight buttercream problem, it was still to hard/cold to spread so I thought I'd break it up in smaller lumps in order for it to warm up faster.....my advise it to not do that because that makes it curdle! Yes my buttercream curdled a second time! This time I did panick but after 5 minutes I got a hold of myself and thought I could at least try fixing it before throwing it in the bin. So again I used the warming and whipping trick....and it worked again! (made me very curious about the chemical processes that were happening in the buttercream). Spread half of the buttercream onto the not so even anymore surface of the genoise and rolled it up. I cut a slice from both sides to see how the swirl turned out. Definitely not perfect but good enough for a first try.
Didn't have time to frost the outside on the same evening so I did that the next day, making sure to get the buttercream out of the fridge well in advance this time.
As I mentioned before, I'm not the Yule log type so I couldn't get myself to make branches on my log. Instead I just frosted the roll I made and decorated it with a cake comb. To stay in the whole wood thing I put the log (actually ⅔ of it) on a wooden chopping board and decorated with a few marzipan mushrooms. I really loved the taste of the Yule log, coffee buttercream is my favourite and had to taste the buttercream lots of time before I finally used it ;)
The combination is very similar to Dutch Mokkataart but than even better than the one you would buy at the bakers.
I had a hard time to photograph this log. The lighting was not good, it was a very grey day and I didn't manage to get the right colour in the picture. Also I found it hard to just make a nice (enough) picture. These pictures were the best I could do.

Unfortunately I will only be able to maybe see a few of the other creations because for the next 10 days we'll be in Croatia and the only internet connection we'll be having is dial-up (yes, that still exists). Hope to read about the other Yule logs after I'm back from Croatia.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!




PS the inside buttercream looks darker than the outside even though it's the same. Maybe whipping it the second time made it darker?

You can find the recipe here.
Things I changed in the recipe:
Added 1 ts of ground vanilla bean to the genoise.
Used dark brown sugar instead of regular in the buttercream.

Zorra of Kochtopf is a very busy girl this month with hosting several foodblogging events. She and Sandra of Un tocco di Zenero are hosting a fun foodblogging event: best of 2007. The idea is to create a list of everyone's best 2007 recipe. I wasn't sure what my best of 2007 was so I've decided to let you, my dear readers decide. I have two favorites myself, the first is this nectarine upside-down cake that for me was the most delicious of 2007. The second is this chocolate hazelnut cake covered with chocolate marzipan which besides being delicious was my favourite one for its looks. Please feel free to let me know which one you liked best in the comments, it doesn't have to be one of my favourites btw...

Thanks for voting!

Busy times over here, finished my second exam of three this week....big sigh....did ok (enough) on both. Friday last exam. Also Friday A's father and brother are coming for a pre-Christmas dinner. We're leaving for Croatia on Sunday so we'll be spending Christmas and also New Year's day with my parents (who arrived there last Sunday). We're taking A's grandmother too, that'll be the first time she'll be visiting Croatia and also meeting the Croatian part of my family. I'm sort of tired because I went to bed too late last night because I was studying....I don't think my writing is very coherent, sorry about that...
Anyway, as I was saying: a busy week. Still don't know what too cook for Friday night. Also I'm trying to fit in the Daring Bakers December challenge.
The pudding you see in the picture above is a Dutch classic: Almond semolina pudding with red currant sauce. I made it for the 38th edition of SHF that is hosted by Kochtopf's Zorra. For this pudding you just cook the semolina in milk, add some ground almonds, sugar and vanilla. To serve with the pudding I made the classic sauce to accompany it: red currant sauce. You can find small bottles of red currant juice in every supermarket in the Netherlands but I'm not sure how the situation is in other countries. Of course you could use fresh red currant juice (probably even better!). And a good substitute would be cranberry juice which is very red and very tart too.
The semolina that's available in the Netherlands is a pretty fine one btw.
I used a pudding mould that isn't really a pudding mould but a brioche pan. I bought it a while back but haven't made brioche yet. It works very well for this pudding and I was very happy with the shiny appearence of the pudding. That's probably because the mould is non-stick. The pudding didn't come out by itself, I had to give it a hand by pulling the sides away from the mould. As soon as some air went up to the top it came out beautifully.

Almond semolina pudding

serves 6

½ vanilla bean
1 l (4 ¼ cup) milk
100 g (3 ½ oz) semolina
50 g (¾ oz) ground almonds
75 g (2 ⅔ oz) sugar + extra

Cut the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the vanilla seeds. Add the seeds to the milk.Let the vanilla steep in the milk on low heat for 15 minutes.
Mix the semolina, almonds and sugar. Add the mixture to the hot milk. Bring to a boil and allow to cook. Cook and stir for 5 minutes. Rinse a pudding mould with cold water and add the pudding. Sprinkle with sugar to prevent the forming of a crust. Allow to cool to room temperature. Chill in the fridge for a few hours.
Place a big plate ovet the pudding mould and invert it to get out the pudding. Serve with the red currant sauce.

Red currant sauce

rind of ¼ lemon (only the yellow part)
100 ml (scant ½ cup) water
300 ml (1 ¼ cup) red currant juice
1 tbs potato starch
60 g (2 oz) sugar

Allow the lemon rind to steep in the water for 5 minutes.
Mix the potato starch with a little bit of water until lump free.
Add the red currant juice and bring to a boil. Add the potato starch water mix whilst stirring. Add the sugar and allow to cook for 1 minute. Allow the sauce to cool down completely.

I made this Miffy cookie (in Dutch she's called Nijntje) when I made the Christmas tree cookies. I don't have a Miffy cookie cutter but my son has Miffy molds for sand that I used :) I just pressed the outlines in the dough and cut it with a sharp knife. I let my 2 ½ year old son eat it which he loved as you can imagine...