From Disaster to Delicious

I always make a Bûche de Noël for our Christmas Eve dinner every year.  Thankfully logs are messy things as this year things got a bit broken before they got better.

I used an orange boxed cake mix and baked it in a jelly roll pan for about 15 minutes.

I turned it onto a clean tea towel and rolled it up while warm just like Martha says to do.

However, when I unrolled it to ice the cake, it all broke apart.  It usually breaks apart a bit, but not this much.

I made a batch of chocolate icing and started slathering on the icing and basically glueing the pieces together.  I had to make more icing because of the amount needed as glue.  Eventually we had it all rolled up and the outside iced.  We ran fork tines along the icing to make it seem like bark.  Sometimes I cut a piece off one end and attach it to look like a branch, but I was afraid to do any fancy cutting with this one so it was a straight log.  Just before serving I dusted it with icing sugar which makes it seem like it has just snowed (and covers up any messy bits), added a few cranberries, and put in our plastic axe that we use every year.  

And presto - it somehow came together and looked like a log.

Have you ever made a yule log?  If you haven't tried making one you really should - it is an easy yummy dessert and it can't go too wrong as logs are messy things so your yule log can be too.