Who can resist a tree made of chocolate? Buche de Noel do not have to be complicated. You can make a simple one with whipped cream rather quickly – and everyone will think you spent hours doing it!

Filling ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1/2 Tablespoon espresso powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake ingredients:
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
6 egg whites
1/4 cup white sugar
powdered sugar for dusting

Make the filling first. In a large bowl, whip cream, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder and vanilla. Start slow, then whip up good. This happens quickly, so watch it! Keep it in the fridge while you move on to the cake.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prep a 10×15 inch jellyroll pan with parchment, lightly buttered.

In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with 1/2 cup sugar. Carefully add the cocoa, vanilla, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer whip egg whites to soft peaks. Slowly add the 1/4 cup of sugar, and beat until whites form stiff peaks. Go nuts! You want peaks baby, peaks!

Quickly fold the cocoa mixture into the whites.

Pour the batter into the jelly roll pan – using a spatula to even it all out.

Bake for 12 to 15 mins depending on your oven. Now, get a CLEAN dishtowel and dust it with powdered sugar. Turn the warm cake onto the towel. Peel back the parchment paper.

Now, roll the cake up with the towel. What you are doing is trying to form the rolled shape. Let cool in the rolled up towel for 20- 30 minutes.

Set aside about 1/3 of the filling mixture to frost the outside of the cake. Carefully unroll the cake, and spread the other 2/3 of the filling on top – keep to 1 inch of the edge of the cake. This is to prevent the ooze factor. Now roll the cake up again. Quite obviously NOT with the towel.

If you REALLY want it to look like a log, cut off about 3″ off the end of the cake – at an angle. Place that piece along the side of the log. What you are doing is trying to mimic a branch. Don’t ask why. Why are you eating a cake in the shape of a log in the first place, you know? Don’t ask.

Place seam side down onto a serving plate. Frost with the remaining frosting. You can make cute woodsy patterns if you like. Decorate with berries, or meringues and just refrigerate until you are ready to serve. Dust with powdered sugar before you serve it to look like a little snowy scene. This is an impressive dessert that takes very little time!

Just take the original recipe and make it CHRISTMAS-Y!

ingredients:
2 small boxes strawberry jello
2 small boxes lime jello
1 can sweetened condensed milk (Like Eagle or something, got it?)
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
water

In a bowl, dissolve the strawberry boxes of jello into two cups of hot water. Pour into a flat tupperware. In a separate bowl, dissolve the lime jello into two cups of hot water. Pour into a flat tupperware. Chill the two containers overnight.

Ready a 9×13 pan. Cut the two jello flavors into small blocks. Mix together carefully in pan.

In a separate bowl, dissolve 2 envelopes unflavored gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water. Add dissolved gelatin to 1 3/4 cup hot water and condensed milk. Cool.

Pour cooled milk mixture over jello and chill overnight.

These colors look so nice for the holidays, you’ll have a festive christmas dessert table!

The kids wanted to decorate gingerbread. So I made up some dough and got out my GIANT 10″ gingerboy cookie cutter, which makes a pretty nice sized cookie. Lots of surface area for decorating!

I made up some royal icing and let the kids have at it.

The Baby went wild with the candies and was more interested in eating them than actually decorating.

I made up some Batman faces to stick on top of them, the idea was to totally Batman-them out in black and yellow, but I saw how much fun the kids were having just going whole hog with the candies, so I got caught up in the fun. They turned out not so much Batman – more like creepy Candyland. Still they were delish, then again, cover anything head to toe in candy and you can’t go wrong.

I am not a fan of leftovers but after a HUGE holiday meal, you can’t really help it. My tradition has always been to make a day-after-the-holiday breakfast.

ingredients (leftovers):
garlic mashed potatoes
butter
ham, chopped
one egg
dash of milk
garlic salt
pepper
rolls
cheese

Take your leftover mashed potatoes and shape them into small patties, about the size of the palm of your hand. Heat some butter in a skillet on medium high heat. Place the patties in the pan and don’t move until the underside has browned. Then flip them over and brown the other side. Remove to a plate and set aside.

In a small bowl crack your egg, add a dash of milk and some garlic salt and little pepper. Add the chopped ham and scramble up with a fork. Add a little more butter to the pan, then scramble the egg. It will sit a little better on your roll if the egg is more firm.

Place the egg scramble on the roll, top with a small slice of cheese and serve with your potato pancake. A lovely homey holiday breakfast.

These cookies look festive with white chocolate swirled chips around the holidays, but regular chocolate chips would taste just as good.

ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
2-1/2 teaspoons peppermint
2 cups chocolate chips (for the holidays I use swirled white chips)

dip ingredients:
1 cup mini chocolate chips
1 teaspoon peppermint

I found these Nestle swirled white chocolate chips for the holiday, which was great for the kid who has a chocolate allergy. Of course I omitted the ‘dipping’ part for his…

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a mixer cream the butter with the sugars until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating and scraping down the bowl as needed. Add the peppermint, then on low speed add in the flour mixture slowly. Take the bowl off the mixer and stir in the chips.

On prepped cookie sheet, drop teaspoonfuls of batter about 2 inches apart. Bake about 8 to10 minutes, depending on your oven. Cool on a wire rack.

You can leave them as is, or go for the gusto and dip them in a peppermint flavored chocolate. Just put the mini chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl, heating it up in 20 second intervals, stirring at the end of each. Careful you don’t burn it, once the chocolate is completely melted, stir in the peppermint extract.

Take each cookie and dip halfway into the chocolate. Let dry on a wire rack.

I ran out of eggs. And butter. I had to improvise on the fly. Now don’t get me wrong, I bow down to the altar of Paula Deen, (entirely made of butter, btw) but it IS possible to cook without animal products if need be, even if it’s not my first choice. These are REALLY good, moist and you won’t even miss the butter…

ingredients:
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup light molasses
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons applesauce

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a cupcake pan with liners.

Sift together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, cloves, nutmeg and salt.

Whisk together wet ingredients – oil, molasses, syrup, water and applesauce.

Stir the wet into the dry until nicely combined.

Fill your baking cups about 2/3 full. Bake 15 – 19 minutes, depending on your oven, until a toothpick comes out clean.

I used a chocolate frosting, but any combination will do!