Family Yule Log – Part 2 of 3

Part 1

Part 2

At 8:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, my daughter and I began our first-ever Yule Log baking adventure in our pajamas in a rural countryside VRBO kitchen that was unfamiliar to us. When our Kentucky family got together to plan the Christmas dinner, everyone decided to divide the menu and each prepare a dish. Ever so daringly and boldly, she volunteered us to bring a Yule Log. She’d found an ambitious recipe online and had shopped for all the ingredients. She measured them into bags and brought them to the rental house.

By the time we arrived back from the only open store, a Dollar General on the backside of nowhere, we were well into the Christmas Eve hours when children are tucked into bed and elves begin working their magic. And we needed more than magic. We needed divine intervention. Lots and lots of prayer – my One Little Word for 2023. 

The recipe looked intimidating. We watched the video of the woman making it to try to ease my apprehension. So much had to go right, and I was fearful of a flop.

To ante up the challenge, we were using dishes that weren’t ours, cooking in a gas oven we didn’t know. The cardinal rule in baking is to “know thine oven,” and this beast was a complete and total stranger from another realm. 

Somehow, though, after all the beating of the egg whites with sugar to form stiff peaks and folding in that mixture with the flour and egg yolk and cocoa, she pulled a perfectly baked chocolate sponge cake from the oven, ready to be inverted onto parchment paper and rolled in a thin white towel and placed in the coolest part of the room to set before spreading the heavy whipped cream on it and re-rolling it. My daughter was unflappable throughout the whole process, but my nerves were on edge the entire time. I was trying not to show it. 

We watched the recipe video again when it came time to unroll the cake and spread the layer of whipped cream on the inside. 

The entire process involved phases of blending, folding, baking, setting, cooling, spreading, rolling, unrolling, and waiting. It also involved a lot of laughing to keep the nerves under control. It felt a lot like walking across a landmine with someone who didn’t know we were on a battlefield with so many potential pitfalls. 

As every step turned out, my daughter smiled through the entire process. She was baking a miracle as I stood amazed. Turns out, she hadn’t read the entire recipe before she started. Each small step was not overwhelming to her. I, on the other hand, saw every mile of the long journey and knew how risky it could be.

It came time for the rolled log to be iced, and her artistic flair came out in full force. 

She evened out the chocolate buttercream frosting into consistent thickness and began her artistic presentation using a fork to make bark lines, even making an elliptical shape to make it look more knotty and authentic, like an owl might pop its head out at any moment and ask us whoooo we were. She softened a Hershey bar and began the tedious process of shaving thin chocolate curls with a sharpened knife. And she placed peppermints in a Ziploc bag and crushed them to look like shimmering snow to top the Yule Log. 

And when her masterpiece was finished, she stood back and admired it with pride. 

“Look what we did, Ma! Thanks for making it with me. Without you, I probably would have given up.” 

I hugged her close, thinking, No, dear daughter. This is all your creation, not mine. I never would have even attempted it. You are far more courageous than I will ever be.

She inverted a mixing bowl to cover it like a cake lid and placed it in the refrigerator to chill overnight. I admired her accomplishment and thought of that Yule Log as a metaphor for all the ways we need each other. 

And we hugged goodnight, looking forward to sharing it with family on Christmas Day.