Merry Christmas Eve, friends! I hope you are still in your pajamas, sipping coffee, baking cookies and watching Christmas movies. I took on one last freelance recipe development project for the year, which I finished up late last night so as soon as I click “publish” on this blog post, I’m on vacation! Since I’ve been working all week, I haven’t baked one single Christmas-y treat so today, I’ll be deep in cinnamon roll dough and banana bread. I cannot wait.

But first, no Christmas dessert collection is complete without a Buche De Noel (or a Yule log cake). These are far simpler than they look. A Buche de Noel aka roulade aka jelly roll is simply a sponge cake, filled with some sort of cream or jelly, rolled and frosted to look like a Yule log. My rendition features a cardamom and orange flavored sponge, an orange ricotta cream reminiscent of cannoli filling, and a chocolate cardamom buttercream. There are so many different ways to decorate your cakes, do a simple google search for ideas and make it your own!

After 12 days of brand new recipes here on the blog, I’ll be taking a few weeks off. I have a new baby niece that I’m dying to snuggle and we are right in the middle of buying our first home so I’ll be packing and unpacking like a mad woman. It’s been a wild year, but I’ve been so blessed to be able to share it with you all in my little baby internet food community. See you in 2021!