Ho, to the Ho, Ho.

This year, I decided to attempt the Bûche de Noël — so beautiful...and challenging. And I may or may not have shed a tear during the transfer from parchment paper to plate, but thankfully ganache conceals all. If you're feeling ambitious, the recipe I used is from Saveur.

Oh, and those adorable meringue mushrooms — are they ever fun to make. I used a different method for the mushroom assembly, instead of carving a hole in the cap of the shroom, I just used a microplane to sand down the stems, so they can adhere easily to the caps using ganache. 

This was made for my in-laws, so unfortunately I won't know until Christmas if it's safe for consumption.

As this will be my last post for 2012, I'd like to wish everyone Happy Holidays!