Bûche de Noël

It is no secret that my mother happens to be the best cook, baker, party planner, and decorator. When we were young, we lived in Newport Beach and for fun my mother started teaching cooking classes at our house. During the Christmas holiday season, she taught the ladies of Newport Beach how to make the classic French Christmas dessert, bûche de Noël. They are also called yule logs, but that is a horrible sounding word so don't ever use it. The recipe for this dessert dates back to the 19th century. The funny part is that all of the women in the class were too lazy to actually make the dessert so my mother baked all of the cakes, sold them to the women and the women would take all of the credit at the party. Ha ha Ha. You can get very creative with this dessert. For me, it's all about the meringue mushrooms. Check out the nostalgic video of Julia Child teaching the audience how to make the bûche de Noël. Joyeux Noel!