
This month, the daring bakers challenge has a Christmas theme! It is a yule log. In NZ we have adopted many Northern hemisphere traditions, but the yule log is not one of them. A yule log is basically a sponge filled with a creamy filling, rolled up and then covered in buttercream and decorated to look like a log. The rules were that we could chose whatever flavour spong we wanted and whatever flavour filling we wanted, but had to decorate the log with a dark coloured buttercream - coffee was suggested. we also had to make meringue or marzipan mushrooms to decorate the log.
We went out for dinner last night and I volunteered to make dessert, so thought I would make my log for that. I decided to make a chocolate log and fill it with whipped cream and sliced strawberries whcih is more in keeping for a NZ Christmas. I covered the log with chocolate buttercream.

My meringues were a real disaster (see above)!!!! I normally pride myslef on being a reasonable meringue maker, but for the gods were against me on these babies!! First of all, I decided to half the mixture, but for some reason I did 2/3 of the egg whites, so I had too much egg white for sugar. Then I turned the oven off early as I had to race back to work for a last minute Christmas settlement. Then I took the meringues out of the oven before they were completely cool - I usually leave them in over night. AS a result my "mushrooms" don't look remotely mushroom like! I toook them off before we took it out for dinner.
I was delighted with teh butter cream though. it was delicious and set perfectly. All in all it was a success, mushrooms aside. Once again I attempted something i havent made before and learned new techniques. I wish you could see what it looked like when it was cut open as it looked great with teh strawberries and cream and was delicious!!! See how the other daring bakers did here.
have a wonderful Christmas and happy holidays. I am off for 3 weeks now. Thanks everyone for reading!! It has been a fun few months and my blog is certainly filling the void for writing a cook book!!! I look forward to next year!!! :0)