Bûche de Noël

Yes, I know,...it's been a while. So many things have happened recently, some of them less pleasant, which have kept me away, from you, my dear readers. But I have not been away-away, from the shadow of my laptop I have followed my favourite blogs and indulged in the entries on Christmas. And I have had a blogger-"date" with Ada from classiq.ro, which was really nice and I hope we can repeat it sometime in the near future.

Going back to postings of other bloggers, I have seen a lot of suggestions on Christmas decorations, Christmas clothing, gifts, moods etc. etc. so as an addition to all of that I will write today on what I like most: food!

Two years ago I had a pre-Christmas-dinner in Monaco with my landlady from then, now my friend. She showed me some insights on their traditions. It was a pre-Christmas dinner as I went home for the so-called "real deal", meaning Christmas with my family.

I will not go in too many details, as French eat by definition a lot in many variations (and you can hardly see it deposited afterwards on their body), so I picked 3 of my long list of favourites.

The first one, a starter, is smoked salmon served on warm blinis combined with sour cream. A smooth combination of flavours and origins: salty, sweet, sour with Nordic, Russian and European composed a lovely French hors-d'œuvre.

(Picture Source: http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/imageBank/cache/s/_e_73d1d5236a676223e137df8d9124a841.Salmon-Blinis_13K)

The second one, is also a starter and I associate this one more with France than the first one. I could eat it till I would drop: the traditional foie gras. The perfect combination for me? Take some foie gras du canard mi cuit and serve it with toasted bread and jam made out of figs: again you have a salty, fatty flavour embraced by the smoothness of the sweet jam.

(Picture Source: http://www.comptoirgastronomique.com/images/files-extra-fields/coffret-foie-gras.jpg)

Most of the main dishes are found in Germany or Romania as well, so for the third gastronomic favourite, i will go directly to the end of a dinner: the traditional Bûche de Noël. As the name tells us, the traditional preparation and decoration/presentation of this cake is made that way in order for it to look like a log ready to be thrown in the fire. It is generally made from a sponge-cake (or pain d'Espagne) which is rolled into a cylinder, being filled on the inside with a butter-cream and a chocolate-butter-cream on the outside. Some make small mushroom-cakes out of meringue to decorate the Bûche (log) with it or use fresh berries, to give it the chopped-off-branch-from-the-forest-look.

(Picture Source: http://vanillepatisserie.com/images/BucheDeNoel.jpg)

As things evolve in taste and gastronomy as well, several variations of more modern cakes are to be found on the market: from different glazing (strawberries, bananas, etc.) to the small plastic decoration which is put on the cake, as you can see in the picture below. In Monaco I have seen some with small Star Wars or Harry Potter figures. These are of course for the little ones.

(Picture Source: http://www.howdididoit.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/041225buchedenoel.jpg)

Luxury can never avoid gastronomy (or gastronomy can never avoid luxury), so this year a renowned Patissier, Pierre Herme, offers a modern view and presentation of the traditional cake. Nevertheless, the composition is not the traditional one, being made of chocolate biscuits wrapped in a light dark chocolate layer. All to come in a superbe silver box, for stunning 160 Euros in all Pierre Herme boutiques. Or you could just take the time, take a or more family members, and have the fun and pleasure of baking it together. It will probably taste more like Christmas and holidays!

(Picture Source: http://www.luxuo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/herme-buche-noel-2010.jpg)