Holly's Blog

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

So I had good intentions of making this for dessert for Christmas Eve.  But then life happened.  Tim worked right up to Christmas Eve which made it hard to do this with a baby in the kitchen so I didn't get started until boxing day.  I made the Crème Brulée that day and then planned to make the rest following but that didn't happen either so my poor little brulee sat in the freezer for a few days by himself.  I am happy to report that he is doing well now that he had joined his buddies!  But...  I'm not done quite yet!  I had a miscalculation (didn't read fully) and put the dacquoise on the top of the log as opposed to the bottom, which means I needed to make more (which is ok because the leftovers are so yummy!).  So I have made more  dacquoise and it is ready to go when I get the ganache done.  I burnt my caramel (yeah, I know bad me) so I'm going to try again after my little man is in bed.  Hopefully it will work better this coming time and I will be able to finish tonight!  I am SO looking forward to enjoying this one as it has been the most exciting I think to date for me and I can't wait for more Daring Baker's challenges in 2009!

UPDATE:  Ok, everything is done!  Except for the icing and it is setting up right now.  I'm very excited to try it!  The ganache tasted amazing!!!  It's in my blast chiller (also known as my deck) as we speak.  I thought -25 Celcuis might freeze it faster than whatever the freezer inside is set at.  I'm hoping to have some pictures very soon of what it looks like so far but I guess we'll have to wait till tomorrow night for the finishing touches as we are planning on eating it for New Year's Eve.  I think this is my favorite challenge so far.  I'd like to thank my brand new Kitchen Aid Standing Mixer from my wonderful husband for Christmas.  Without you life wasn't complete! :P

Isn't it beautiful?!  I love it.  I can't wait to try it out on more things.  It's like having that extra third arm I've been looking for since my little man was born!  Just in time for the other one to come out and make day to day life even more challenging!  That's ok though, I can't wait for this new little person to make their appearance.  We've even decided on a name and sorted the baby clothes last night.  Ok, I'm getting side tracked.

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. 

They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

And the Challenge this month is…
A French Yule Log!!!

So I make pizza a fair amount at home, mainly because I like to know what's going into my sauce and what I'm feeding my little ones.  But I had never tried tossing the dough in the air!  It sounded like a step that really wasn't necessary to me.  I thought it would d