My family was never religious, and for us Christmas was purely traditions, but as I got older, traditions started to feel like routine. The most important traditions got lost. Baking batches of cookies with my mom became taking turns in a shrinking kitchen. What was once clinging to the edge of the top bunk while my dad read about the night before Christmas, became the family cramming onto one bed as he tries to get through the book. 
     In 2023, I decided to celebrate Yule, a pagan winter solstice celebration. With research ready, I just had to present my plan to the family. I was worried. My family aren’t the type of people to be against the idea, but my whole life I’d been unlearning belief in magic. I felt foolish. Light on confidence, I started small, suggesting customs that influenced Christmas. I placed a small log as the centrepiece. Our Yule Log. Though I had no way to light it, I loved it. 
     Before the solstice, my dad began assembling his gift. He went out with a mission: ingredients. He had a plan, he was going to make Yule-Log Cakes. With his groceries in hand he headed to the Bulk Barn in search of something for decorative mushrooms. He stumbled upon moulding chocolate, a material he’d never used before. He brought his supplies home and began preparing the chocolate. Once prepared he hid it in the fridge to chill. On the 21st, Yule, while my sister and I were at school, my dad began to decorate. He stuck broken chocolate fingers into each roll as branches. He then coated the Swiss rolls with icing, spreading it horizontally to give the illusion of bark. Finally, for the mushrooms, he sculpted each by hand and placed them next to the logs. He put so much care into each plate. He did it all without anyone suspecting a thing.
I came home that evening to find plates on the counter, hidden by newspaper cones. After dinner my dad presented his gift. Three plates of two beautifully decorated cakes and many chocolate mushrooms. 
     This year we celebrated again. I made a pasta dinner and a proper Yule Log, decorating it with colourful candles we burned during our meal. My dad made his log cakes again, spending all day moulding different coloured chocolate mushrooms. A perfect dessert for a perfect tradition.

RECIPE
This is a recipe for decorating your Log Cakes to look like whimsical forest delights so portions are mostly up to you and you can give or take designs/ingredients to create your own unique, edible log. The measurements given are for one log and are very loose, generally I suggest making them in a batch and doubling the ingredients for each new roll.
INGREDIENTS - Makes one cake, duplicate as needed.

• Swiss rolls of your choice (I used the store bought kind but homemade ones work as well). How ever many you have will be the amount of logs you can decorate. 
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of icing of your favourite frosting, both chocolate and vanilla work depending on the type of log you intend to make. (Amount may vary depending on the thickness of the frosting.) 
• 2 Chocolate finger cookies, these will serve as branches for your log

- For the corn syrup and chocolate it depends on the amount of mushrooms you want to make but to make the chocolate work it’s 1 part corn syrup and 4 parts chocolate. - 

• Corn Syrup
• A few colours of moulding chocolate, you’ll be making little mushrooms out of these so choose the colours you would like those to be
• A few hours 

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Push some of the chocolate fingers into each roll to look like branches.
2.  Cover them in icing. Then spread the icing horizontally down the Swiss roll with a knife. This helps give the illusion of bark. 
3. For the mushrooms:

• Melt moulding chocolate in a double boiler
• Add corn syrup (one part corn syrup for every 4 parts of chocolate)
• Pour onto plastic wrap and let cool in the fridge for a few hours.

1. After your chocolate has cooled, you can break off a piece and warm it up with your hands, shaping the chocolate into little mushrooms. The chocolate starts to harden as it cools to room temperature
2. Use white chocolate for the stems and dots on the mushroom caps, and your other colours for mushroom caps
3. With any leftover chocolate you can make ting shelf mushrooms to stick onto the log.
4. Voila! A fun addition to any tradition.

Written by Amelia M