Last week at Brainfood, we made a holiday favorite of mine: the Buche de Noel.  It’s an ambitious baking recipe, and our students did an amazing job with it. Even though I’ve made a Buche de Noel every Christmas since I was younger than our Brainfood participants, every year I make it, I seem to learn new things!  This year, four lessons have stuck with me.  

1. Traditions can evolve

The meaning of the name Buche de Noel is  “yule log”, and it actually originates from the Pagan  ritual  of burning a log to celebrate the winter solstice. This tradition was then adapted by Catholics into a Christmas custom which involved decorating the log before burning it. Eventually it morphed into a tradition involving a decorated log as a centerpiece surrounded by sweets, and then ultimately into a “log” made of cake (instead of an actual log), which is much more suitable for eating than for burning! This story serves as a reminder that traditions can change, and that everything has a mutlilayered history.

2. Trust yourself

We all have those nerve-wracking moments in the kitchen where we ask ourselves, “Can I pull this off? Is this really going to work? What if I fail?” In the Buche de Noel process, this moment comes in those harrowing thirty seconds when the cake is unrolled after it is cooled and rolled up again with the cream filling inside. We all hold our breath and cross our fingers that it doesn't crack, and when the recipe is a huge success, the elation and relief are indescribable!

3. Work with what you’ve got

At one of our Brainfood kitchens, we didn’t have any cookie sheets that were the right size to make the cake with. We used a 9x13 baking dish instead, but  we had more batter than we needed in a pan of that size. In this situatuion, one group of students chose to make a few smaller cakes with loaf pans as well. They created adorable mini Buche de Noel stumps, which, of course, tasted just as good as the large one! Being resourceful with limited materials is a crucial skill, both in the kitchen and in life.

4. Innovation is beautiful

This recipe originally calls for a coffee flavored whipped cream, which I have always been convinced is the best kind of whipped cream. However, some students chose to make a plain sweetened cream version, and some made a new version with almond extract or with coconut extract. They were absolutely wonderful , and as someone who’s a long-time devotee of the original recipe with coffee cream, I was shocked by how much I liked (maybe even preferred!) the alternate versions!