I’m not entirely sure how that happened. Oh, I get the mechanics of it – I didn’t sleep through all of 9th-grade health class, after all, and once you have a baby you have to take care of her, and then one thing leads to another and suddenly a baker’s dozen years have flown by without your noticing and it’s that last part that leaves me a bit puzzled.
But “a bit puzzled” is sort of my ground state these days, so I’m used to it.
For her birthday cake, Tabitha decided she wanted to make a buche de noel, which as near as I can tell is French for “heart attack covered with powdered sugar.” There are a dozen eggs in it, and seven and a half sticks of butter. There is also 2/3 of a cup of flour, mostly I suspect so that the resulting cake doesn’t get classified as a custard. But Tabitha loves her French class down at Mighty Clever Guy Middle School and she was willing to put in the effort, so a buche de noel it was.
She and Kim spent the better part of the afternoon making this thing – the cake, the whipped frosting, the meringue mushrooms and toadstools – and it was gorgeous.
That's Midgie there in the background, keeping an eye on things. Because you never know when kitty treats might suddenly materialize. Cats live in a world full of magic that way.
We had a nice simple dinner and then some friends who were at loose ends for New Year’s came over and shared the buche de noel with us. We all sang and then we ate.
It was really, really, good, in an artery-clogging sort of way. Dangerously good. But what is a birthday if not to live a bit larger than one does on most days, and if buche de noel is how you choose to do that, well then go with style.
Happy Birthday, Tabitha. I’m proud of you.
I am impressed, and I have seen these things in bakeries for a couple of weeks now.
ReplyDeleteWe have a recipe for chocolate cake withOUT flour. 250g chocolate, butter, and sugar, NINE egg yolks and five egg whites. Quality, not quantity. That's the secret.