Yule Log 2021: My Backyard

This year’s Yule Log is a loving homage to my soggy Pacific Northwest backyard. It also allowed me to attempt something I’d been noodling on how to do for years – moss!

My backyard features 11 huge Douglas Fir trees. When you look down from those majestic beauties, however, you find a forest floor. Lawn? Ha! Sporadic patches of grass amongst the moss, tree litter, mushrooms, and billions of pinecones? Yep.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how it turned out to be my favorite Yule Log I have made so far. It’s so dang pretty!

Because my backyard is full of foresty things, I had to edit down what I could include. Pinecones (so many), but I’ve done those before. Pine needles? Yep, done that. I’d done mushrooms, but realistic ones like the ones outside right now? Not quite! But moss and dead leaves presented a brand new challenge. I had my plan.

(Ferns are still on my to-do list once I figure out how I can make them both realistic and delicious.)

For the mushrooms, I piped larger, flatter caps of different sizes and made them a little wonky. After assembly, I brushed them with cocoa powder on the caps, and done.

The leaves are sugar cookies dipped into a pool of white, milk, and dark chocolates melted and marbled together. Not super realistic, but beautiful. Inspired by this recipe.

The moss. The glorious moss! I wanted it to look real. Not sprinkles, or shredded coconut. This moss is cake crumbs. A microwave mug cake, of all things! Mixed, zapped, cooled, and crumbled. Perfection!

The cake roll was chocolate, using Stella Parks’ recipe, filled with cream cheese ermine frosting (a little too soft but excellent), frosted with chocolate ganache, and dragged with a fork to make a beautiful bark texture.

So pretty. Moss!!!