Merry Buche Noel

Well Christmas is pasted and now New Years is upon us. I'm sorry I've been silent for a while. We've had some big changes occur lately. First I found out I'm pregnant again, which we're super excited about. Then we found a new house to rent much closer to Daniele's work and right down the street from my friend Abby.
 Then Christmas came and lots of cooking was done. So you can see how blogging took a place at the back burner (pun intended). We spent Christmas quietly in this house. Christmas eve I made pasta with mixed seafood. Sofia really enjoyed the scallops. Then we went out a looked at lights in our neighborhood. After which we came home and Sofia took her bath and went to sleep. Daniele and I stayed up a while just snuggling and enjoying the lights. That night was not as quiet however as I spent it tending to a teething/crying Sofia. Christmas morning we got up to have a phone conference with Daniele's parents in Italy. Then we opened presents and ate panettone (homemade of course). I of course was battling lack of sleep and morning sickness the whole time. The rest of the day was spent prepping for dinner.

We invited some friends over for an Italian christmas dinner. I made canneloni, roast goat, rosemary roasted potatoes and brussel sprout hash. And for dessert drum roll please......Buche Noel. I actually made it the day before as it takes a while. No, it's not Italian, but I like to make challenging things every once and while and this is one of those. It took me years to get up the nerve to try this. I made my first one last year. Now it's not so scary. I used a recipe from the William and Sinoma dessert book. Lucky for you and me, they have it online here.

It's consists of three parts: sponge cake, simple syrup and chocolate whipped cream. First you make the cake and then piping hot from the oven you roll it up in a kitchen towel. Then let it cool completely. In the mean time make the simple syrup and chocolate whipped cream.

When the cake is cool you unroll it, brush it with the simple syrup and then spread the cream on the inside and outside.

Lastly, you shave chocolate on top to help it look like bark.

We did not exchange gifts this year as we bough an ipad back in September and agreed that would be both our present. We actually didn't get Sofia anything either. But she did get a few gifts from my family. One I love a lot and which I asked for was a little kitchen.

Now she can cook with me. I've even been making felt pasta for her to prepare.

The dress you see on her is a new one as well. I wanted to try making a long sleeve dress. I looked into the  tutorial on Prudent Baby, but I really didn't have time for measuring and cutting. I need this dress to be done asap for Christmas. So this is even easier, you just fold the fabric correctly, cut and  sew up all the sides. I will put up a tutorial soon as I have three more dresses on my list.

For now it will have to wait, as we are off tomorrow morning to the mountains to find snow and chill out in a cabin with no electronics and a wood fired stove. I'll be back with all the fun details and all those promised tutorials on Thursday. Have a lovely week everyone!