December 31, 2022
As 2022 comes to an end, I have been reflecting on the year and enjoying the happiest of holiday festivities throughout Massachusetts. It has been just over a year since Kev and I moved from Ohio and settled into the burbs of Massachusetts. The holidays this year has been especially exciting since it was Z’s first Christmas. She is in her seventh month now and has reached new developmental milestones. Kev and I have been so amazed by her growth each day and still cannot believe how quickly time has flown by. We were able to spend some much-needed time at home with Z eating tons of food on Thanksgiving and watching Z open presents for the very first time during Christmas. Before we knew it, 2022 was coming to an end.
I have been so lucky to be able to spend time with family this holiday season. We cooked up a storm during Thanksgiving and continued cooking and baking straight into Christmas. Christmastime is my favorite time to visit local towns nearby and check out their lights. We brought Z to ZooLights at Stone Zoo in Stoneham, Festival of Trees in Methuen, Winter Lights in North Andover, and even ventured east to Salem for a day trip. There is no joy like watching Z’s face light up in amazement. In between all our winter festivities, I have been hard at work learning some of my mom and dad’s most cherished recipes. My mom makes the absolute best turkey vegetable soup. I started referring to it as mom’s thankful turkey veggie soup. Mom uses a variety of vegetables and cooks it along with turkey legs to yield the perfect blend of east and west flavors. Dad makes a truly stunning ginger scallion steamed whole fish. He always starts with a fresh fish from the fish section of the local Asian grocery store. He would clean it, prep it, and whip everything together in 30 minutes tops. It pairs perfectly with a steaming hot bowl of jasmine rice. Along with these cherished dishes, I also baked up a super simple bûche de Noël weaving in flavors of matcha and chocolate. I started making my version of a bûche de Noël a couple years ago around the holidays as a fun way to celebrate the season. With my parents celebrating the holidays with us this year, I decided to remake my matcha chocolate Yule log cake. This time though, I made it extra festive by decorating the bûche de Noël with holiday lights made of sprinkles. I used two kinds of sprinkles to make the holiday lights, a beautiful shade of blue oblong-shaped sprinkles for the wires and round colorful sprinkles for the light bulbs. The cake itself was easy to make and assemble. All it took was some patience and a light touch to artfully assemble the cake. Just take a look at the visual steps from the recipe I shared in 2021. We served up the matcha chocolate bûche de Noël as a sweet end to a wonderful Christmas dinner. My mom did not even want me to cut into the cake because she thought it was too pretty to eat. While the outside was pretty to look at, the inside also did not disappoint. Z is still small so she isn’t quite ready to enjoy some of the cake, but when next year rolls around, she will be ready to enjoy this sweet dessert along with other festive holiday treats.
For the matcha chocolate bûche de Noël:
For the matcha sponge:
· 3 large eggs, yolks and whites separated, room temperature
· ¼ cup granulated sugar
· ½ cup and 2 tablespoons cake flour
· 1 teaspoon matcha powder
· a pinch of kosher salt (about 1/8 teaspoon)
· 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
For the whipped cream frosting:
· 2 cups heavy whipping cream
· ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
· ½ teaspoon cornstarch
· 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
For decorating the cake:
· blue or green oblong-shaped sprinkles
· colorful ball-shaped sprinkles
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 425°F. Line a jelly roll baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper long enough to hang off the two shorter sides of the baking sheet. Set aside.
2) In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and ¼ cup sugar until fluffy, about 1 minute. Fold in the cake flour and matcha powder. Set aside.
3) In a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment to whip together the egg whites and kosher salt. Gradually add in the 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Let the stand mixer whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes on medium speed.
4) Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the flour mixture until combined. Be careful not to deflate the egg whites while folding together the mixture.
5) Use an offset spatula to spread the batter in a thin layer onto the parchment lined baking sheet. Tap the baking sheet on the kitchen counter a couple times to help smooth out the batter.
6) Transfer the sheet pan to the oven and bake until the cake is set, about 6 minutes. Remove the sheet pan from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife along the longer edges of the sheet pan to separate the sponge cake layer from the sides of the sheet pan. Starting on one end of the longer side of the sponge cake layer, loosely roll the sponge cake into a log. Set aside the rolled sponge cake. Let cool for at least 30 minutes.
7) After the sponge cake layer has cooled for at least 30 minutes, make the whipped cream frosting by whipping together the heavy whipping cream in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment on medium speed. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar and cornstarch. Continue whipping the heavy cream until the frosting is fluffy and has doubled in size, about 3-5 minutes.
8) When ready to decorate, place a small six-point star or flower decorating tip onto a pastry bag. Add a third of the whipped cream into the pastry bag. Unroll the sponge cake. Pipe strips of whipped cream about ¼ inch apart leaving about a ½-inch border on both ends of the sponge cake. Fold the cocoa powder into the remaining whipped cream. Add the cocoa whipped cream to the same pastry bag. Pipe strips of cocoa whipped cream in the space between the regular whipped cream. Begin rolling the sponge cake on one side until a log is formed. Use a sharp knife to cut the log cake at a diagonal about a third of the way toward one end of the log cake. Attach the diagonally cut end of the smaller piece of the log cake to the larger piece of the log cake to form a tree trunk with a branch sticking out. Pipe strips of cocoa whipped cream around all sides of the sponge cake log until it resembles a Yule log.
9) To decorate the bûche de Noël, assemble the oblong-shaped sprinkles in a row across the log cake to resemble the wire of string lights wrapped around a tree. Add the ball-shaped sprinkles about ½-inch apart from one another to resemble the bulbs of the string lights. There you go, a super simple homemade bûche de Noël decorated with holiday lights!
Takeaways: The proportion of ingredients for the sponge roll cake works best in a jelly roll pan with the dimensions of 15 inches in length, 10.5 inches in width, and 1 inch in height. I found using the six-point star or flower tip helps create the most realistic looking tree bark. There is no need for even piping for the bûche de Noël since tree logs rarely ever have smooth or even looking bark.
