Epicurious editor David Tamarkin and Epi special projects editor Adina Steiman are both card-carrying Jews (ok, there isn't actually a card, but go with us here), they both love baking—and especially decorating—the iconic log-shaped Christmas cake calledBûche de Noël. But this pleasant discovery triggered an avalanche of trash talk, as they each swore that thattheirlog was way more log-like. There was only one way to settle this dispute that didn't involve adance-off. The Bûche de Noël Bake-Off was officially on. Here's what happened next.
ADINA:Bûche de Noël and me, we go way back. I baked my first one when I was invited to my first Christmas dinner in high school, and was promptly addicted. From the start, I didn't want a mere stump of rolled chocolate cake with fork-marked chocolate ganache and a few clumsy meringue mushrooms, so I used rows of split, toasted whole almonds to mimic tree bark, decorating the cut sides of the bûche with the same almonds, white-side out to mimic the exposed wood. I've been making my log the same way ever since. That's why when David mentioned thathisway of decorating a bûche was best, I could only chuckle and offer a sympathetic smile.
DAVID:Adina's smile was clearly a nervous one. Rightly so. For five years I've been hosting Christmas dinners for all the holiday orphans (that is, everybody without somewhere to go on Christmas) in my life, and those dinners always end the same way: The bûche from theTartinecookbook, brought to the table looking like something I picked up off an enchanted forest's floor. (This is a good thing.) The technique here is to stir slivered almonds into the ganache before using it to frost the bûche. The result is a chunky frosting that's slightly awkward to work with, but ends up having all the texture and unique patterns of real bark. Crushed pistachios give the effect of moss; powdered sugar adds a touch of snow.
ADINA:Before frosting and decorating my log, I sliced off just the ends of the rolled cake, saving them to form two small, natural-looking stumps on my cake. I tried to contain my secret glee as I watched David cut off nearly half of his cake to make his stump on his log, leaving him with a pint-size cake.
DAVID:My bûche came together quickly—much faster than Adina's—something I attributed to my superior cake decorating skills. But being so deft came with a downside: too much time. I could have stood there, admiring my bûche, while Adina (very, very slowly) finished hers, but instead I became restless and started embellishing. More pistachio moss. More powdered sugar snow. Cocoa powder to resemble a dirt floor. Soon my bûche was surrounded by a 1/4-inch high layer of powders, and it looked ridiculous. Lucky for me, Adina wasstillnot finished with her cake, so I had time to gently blow off a lot of the extraneous decorations.
ADINA:Let's face it—David choked. As he saw the whole almond thing come together, he got intimidated, and attempted to conceal his bûche's deficiencies by piling on powdered sugar. A futile attempt to conceal the truth. A few pine branches and pinecones (and a mere dusting of powdered sugar) was all I needed to complete my bûche in style.
The verdict? You voted onFacebook虽然比赛很紧张,一个清晰的温内r emerged: Adina's "lovely enough to be a dinner centerpiece" bûche. Ready to cast your own vote? Take your pick of decorating styles, and get to work on your own lovely log.
