I Made Julia Child’s Buche de Noel and It Taught Me a Lesson in Cooking With Confidence

When I was in my early 20s, new to New York City and desperate to break into food journalism, I bought a DVD set of Julia Child’s The French Chef. To unwind, I watched Julia Child truss chickens and make omelets. 

I never actually made any of her recipes, but I did learn a number of things from Julia (it’s Food & Wine’s style to refer to a source by their last name, but how can I call her anything but Julia?). I admired her presence, her voice, and the way she took up space without apology. I was in need of a shot of confidence, and Julia was my model.  

Her most important lesson? “Never apologize; never explain.” She repeated it frequently — on the show and also in Food & Wine, in her December 1988 article about the French Christmas cake, Bûche de Noël. 

In the years since, I have employed this wisdom on perhaps a weekly basis. Despite becoming a food writer and editor — I was F&W’s travel editor for three years — I am not a professional chef or recipe tester. I am a proficient and enthusiastic and even knowledgeable cook, but also inclined toward daydreaming and multitasking, both of which aren’t exactly helpful in the kitchen. So if my chili is a little underspiced or my salad a little overdressed, I try to resist the sometimes overwhelming temptation to both apologize and explain, whether I’m serving friends or neighbors or my husband, Jake, or our sons, Henry and Charlie. 

That rule helps me keep the perspective that homemade food is always a gift, and is best enjoyed without preamble. The person on the receiving end hasn’t been in the cook’s head or cookbook, and therefore doesn’t know what could have been; they only know that there’s a home-cooked dish in front of them. 

When I got this assignment, to make Julia’s famous Bûche de Noël, I took it on eagerly. It was a good excuse to rewatch an episode of her show and to finally, after all these years, make one of her recipes — an orange-almond jelly roll decorated with chocolate frosting to look like a log, complete with meringue mushrooms and powdered sugar snow. 

Now, for context, my approach to dessert is more freewheeling than precise. I love a raspberry galette, a tall hot fudge sundae, an apple crisp with cinnamon and cardamom. My signature dessert is probably my icebox cake, and because you’re asking nicely I will give you the recipe: Layer store-bought chocolate wafers in whipped cream — homemade, though canned works — and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. Sprinkles on top are optional. 

I have baked the occasional birthday cake. At my son Henry’s second birthday party, someone asked Henry if he decorated his own cake, which read, “Happy Birthday, Henry!” 

No. He did not. 

With Julia as my guide, I was determined to stay focused and make this tree branch cake as best as I could, and then present it without preamble to friends at a dinner party in the Berkshires. 

I’ll get right down to it: The cake took me all day. I started shortly after 9 a.m., and the kids finished helping me decorate it at 4:45p.m., just before we needed to leave for the party. I had a few breaks throughout the day, but this was an all-day project for me. 

In a world where you can make an icebox cake instead of an ornate French Christmas cake, why would you choose to make the Bûche de Noël?

For one thing, it felt luxurious, spending a day on this one task. I pulled my kids back in the mix to decorate the cake, quoting Julia when she made this Yule log in an episode of The French Chef in 1964: “Scuttle it up a little bit so it looks as barky as you can make it.”

The boys relished placing the meringue mushrooms on the cake. I was fretting under my breath about how neat it was (or wasn’t) — breaking the rules! — and my 11-year-old, Henry, said, “Mom, next time don't doubt yourself. You should be impressed with yourself.” 

Julia reminds us in that episode that errors are part of the process: “This twig doesn’t look quite as twiggy as it could,” she laments. “Ah, I guess that would happen in a forest anyway. They’ve been sitting there a long time.”

The whimsical cake impressed our friends, including a professional chef, Ben, who admired its retro appeal. When his wife, Melissa, asked about the cake’s texture, which she liked, I replied, “Oh, it’s almonds. I think I should have ground them more finely.”

My kids shot me chastising looks. Right! “What I mean to say is, I am so glad you like the texture — it’s ground almonds. I am trying not to apologize or explain,” I explained, in an apologetic tone. 

The next night, we pulled the leftover cake out of the fridge. I actually preferred the cake fridge-cold — the orange and almond and chocolate flavors had melded, and the frosting had settled into looking more “barky.” Or maybe its somewhat wonky look had simply grown on me. I felt real affection for this dessert. 

Charlie, my 8-year-old, asked if he could cut our slices. He carefully positioned the knife, which looked enormous in his small hand, and before he pressed down he yelled, in the style of his favorite game show: “Is it cake?!?” 

Everyone in my family interacted with this showstopper of a dessert in a way that I know they will remember. Would they have similarly specific memories if I’d thrown together a raspberry galette? Never. And isn’t that the point of the holidays, to foster and encourage nostalgia as best as you can?

With Julia as my patron saint of Christmas confidence, of Hanukkah chutzpah, I plan to take more big swings this holiday season. I want to try my hand at making unapologetically ambitious dishes, risking failure in the process. I’m talking Oysters Rockefeller, Beef Wellington, Pommes Aligot — foods with an old-world elegance that strut onto the table. 

It would be easier (and more in keeping with my usual throw-it-together hosting style) to serve raw oysters, beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes — God love those straightforward dishes. But when the stakes are higher, so too is the payoff. And if failure comes, I hope to greet it with a big, barky laugh. 

I’m going to extend this ethos to my tablescape, climbing on a ladder to unearth dusty crystal candle holders and other family heirlooms from the back of the highest cabinet. There’s a soup tureen that’s hand painted with flowers and curlicues and topped with darling ceramic mushrooms. I want to find a soup recipe worthy of this tureen, something luxurious that uses a generous amount of heavy cream.  

For our annual holiday cards, those, too, will be influenced by Julia and Paul, who sent out memorably quirky, funny Valentine’s Day cards. I will go through our 2024 pictures and choose the silliest ones, and then have a family brainstorm to nail down the most amusing caption. Where’s the fun in an earnest, sedate picture, anyway? We are not earnest, sedate people. 

Every year my boys invite friends over to make gingerbread houses from the Trader Joe’s kits. They’re cheap and cheerful, and there's nothing wrong with that approach. But I have designs on doing it right this year, and I know just the recipe to follow. 

If all goes well, those gingerbread houses could be the ideal centerpiece to a holiday feast. If the houses turn out less shabby chic and more shabby shabby, I will teach the boys Julia’s lesson: Don’t apologize; don’t explain. Just serve your spiced cookie houses and let everyone break them apart with both hands.  

And once the table is cleared, I will serve that Bûche de Noël. It’s a dessert that demands attention. It takes up space in your schedule and on the table and in your memories. Much like Julia was unafraid to take up space or apologize for herself—her height, her voice, her inevitable mistakes. It takes courage to embody your full self, and to be content with the results. I still aspire to be like Julia, to be like this cake. We are all flawed; we are all showstoppers.