By: Aliya Koshalieva

National/World Editor

Oh, mon dieu! Who would have guessed that a simple Buche de Noel, or a Yule Log Cake, would have taken three girls almost six hours to make? To give you guys an understanding, a Buche de Noel looks like a simple cake, but in the shape of a log. You create cream and ganache to decorate it. Sounds simple, right? Well, it’s not. I went through more stress making this cake than I did while taking the SAT. 

The fact that I overslept should have been a sign warning us of the treacherous task ahead. When my two friends and I signed up for this activity, we did so because of the extra credit offered; I mean, who could resist six whole points of extra credit for making a simple yule log cake? Wrong; we should have resisted. If time machines ever make it into the market, I will buy one just to stop myself from making the cake. 

Since my friends and I didn’t have our licenses, we walked across town from Affordable Treasures for decorations to Lunardi’s for ingredients. With all that walking, we showed up an hour late, at 1:00PM, to my friend’s house. When we started, we realized our recipe didn’t make sense, so halfway through the first couple of steps, we decided to switch recipes. This had to have been another sign from the universe telling us to drop everything, run away, and never look back. 

We hit our first roadblock, our first mistake out of many. My face dropped as I heard, “Uh, guys, I think I messed the filling up.” My friend and I dropped everything to help her; thankfully, the crisis was averted. We continued on, listening to Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday 2, our hopes and spirits high. If only I could have warned them. We baked our mixture, and since it was a Yule log cake, we had to roll it. The fact that the layer cracked and partially broke was definitely the universe giving us our third and final chance before all hell broke loose. 

My friend was making the ganache, and she told me to stir it while it was cooking. I swear I looked away for one second, and when I turned around, my friend’s face looked like she had just seen a ghost. “It curdled,” she yelled, snatching the pot from me. I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but gathered it meant we messed up. 

The three of us made the brave decision to redo the ganache. Since we had run out, another friend and I went back to Lunardi’s to buy whipping cream. We messed up on our second attempt. Instead of measuring the amount she put in, my friend dumped in the entire bottle of whipping cream, and the texture was wonky. It looked like a paste that tasted like chocolate. Tears were forming, and tensions were rising. We put the pasty ganache into the freezer in a last-ditch attempt, hoping it would be fixed. It did not work. 

My friend and I had to brave the five-minute walk back to Lunardi’s for another bottle of whipping cream. It was even worse when the employees recognized us. Our third ganache attempt worked — but not really — because we accidentally bought unsweetened cocoa powder. Whatevs. We slapped it onto our cake and called it a night at 7 P.M. 

Long story short: never make a Yule log cake. With the two failed ganache attempts costing us half a day, I will never step foot into the kitchen again (Unless there is extra credit on the table).