Bûche de Noël

I have never made a bûche de Noël. My sister-in-law, Ann, used to make them every Christmas. Ann is a superior cook and a marvelous baker. Then, one Christmas, our friend Mary Martin (no relation) made three different flavors of bûches for one memorable Christmas dinner. After that, she was the undisputed Queen of Bûches. With competition like that, I don't even try - I just sit back with a slice of swirly, woodgrained cake on my plate and prepare to compliment the cook.

This year, My Beloved and I were on our own for Christmas Eve dinner; daughter Sarah was in Boston with her hubby's family and daughter Katie was in Texas with her main squeeze's family. In case you are tempted to pity us, remember that Katie made us a Dungeness crab dinner before she and her guy left for Texas - we just had Christmas Eve a week early. Anyway, we were planning a nice beef tenderloin roast and, while wheeling our cart around the local market, we spied this bûche and it sort of leaped into our basket.

Swirled with mocha frosting inside and rich, dark chocolate frosting outside, it was as heady and heavenly a bûche as one could ask for, given that Ann and Mary are not with us this Christmas. The traditional meringue mushrooms and holly decorations were there, the cake was iced perfectly to look like the bark on a yule log and it only needed the addition of the little plastic woodsman kept from a previous year's bûche to make it perfect.