Yule Wonder
December 24, 2009 If you're like me, you may have seen cakes in your local bwreckery (<- New word! Booya!) that look a lot like logs. Yule logs, to be exact. And if you're like me, you may ask yourself, "Why do I always get the cart with the wonky wheel?" Which is a mystery. But you might also ask yourself, "Self, what is a Yule Log?" To which your Self might answer, "42" - at which point you should make a mental note to adjust any prescription meds you might be taking.
But, I digress.
Where was I?
Right. Yule logs!
Here comes one now:
I promised Jen this wouldn't be a knotty post! Ha! See, Jen? I can pun with the best of 'em.
Look! It's Santa riding a log!Oh, that sort of sounds suggestive. Uh. Never mind.
Ahh. Das Yule Boot™.
The Yule Shotgun™©.
The Yule Corn-Nut Turd™©®Esq. MD. III.
'Nuff said.So there you have it. The Majestic Yule Log. All warm and fuzzy? Good, good.
Thanks to Carrie F., Melissa B., Jenichan, Anna L., Shannon K., and Jessica S., who I'm sure know what the phrase "dropped a log" means, even if Jen doesn't.
Note: Yes, yes, we know what a Yule Log is. It's the First Fruits tree branch that was carved into a Menorah and given to the Baby Jesus at Winter Solstice. And I'm pretty sure there were Pilgrims involved too.
- Related Wreckage:
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It's the last day in our charity countdown! Woohoo! So today, what with it being Christmas Eve and all, we thought we'd end with a charity that helps promote the wonder of the season year-round for kids who need it most: Give Kids the World.
This organization provides children with life-threatening illnesses and their families truly magical experiences at the Give Kids The World Village, a 70-acre Orlando resort specifically designed for children with special needs. (This place is amazing, too - check out some of the photos!)
Click here to donate your dollar via our First Giving Campaign page.
Reader Comments (76)
Hooray for the Hitchiker's Guide reference!
Yeesh.. The Last One. I think that's the Yule Waterlog.
Happy Holidays!
Man, I love Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In fact, the amount of geekage sprinkled liberally throughout this blog makes me smile.
... thank god Christmas is over, is all I can say. Now my bakery can go back to mangaling both spelling and Transformers cakes.
I DO finally have a wrecky story ... kind of a two-fer. Part one happened about a month ago, part two happened today.
I am NOT a cake decorator, first off. Just a baker, who spends half my day doing my job and the other half running for cakes. On Part One's day, I was attempting to make three different kinds of bread at once, and one of the Deli workers (supermarket store, they stick the two departments together. Deli also goes for cakes. Unfortunately the Bakery cannot help with sandwich platters or cut the head cheese for you) came up to me with a cake request for Mrs. X. So, in a hurry, I go to get Mrs. X's cake. On my way out to the Deli counter, I look on the instructions, because I am starving for human contact and I like seeing what people put on their cakes.
It reads "Happy Birthday Dark Chocolate".
I look at the cake. It reads "Happy Birthday Dark Chocolate" amid buttercream lillies and a few sugar flake sparkles.
I, a dedicated Cake Wrecks reader, am in a strange state of anticipation. On the one hand ... this is my bakery and (now) my customer, and I will have to listen to a complaint I cannot do anything about. The cake decorators are gone, nobody else is allowed to touch the icing tubes. On the other hand, I have been waiting a wreck the way some people await the Second Coming. I might just be holding it in my hands. My only wish is that I had a camera. I get the cake to the customer. She is very large ... and also very black. The cake is for her husband, and it is exactly what she wanted. She enthusiastically thanks me, and when I explain that I did not do the lillies, she tells me to pass her praise on to the decorator.
This is how the literal wrecks happen.
Part Two: It is christmas Eve, we go into our department thanking God we do not have to set foot outside the counter until we have to leave. I am almost out. Just have to clean out the gigantic bread mixer with the bowl permanently affixed. Customer waves me over to retreive their cake. As before, while I'm bringing the cake out, I read the order.
It reads "Happy Birthday Jon (young male)"
I look at the cake. On a gold ribbon, in red icing, it reads "Happy Birthday Jon (young male)" complete with parentheses.
There is no doubt in my mind that I will be fixing this cake in two minutes.
I look back at the order, and realize whoever took the order wrote the inscription in the wrong place -- instead of under "Special instructions" they stuck it in the little box where formatting instructions (IE words here, heart here) go. The cake decorators have been well trained by "Dark Chocolate" cakes to write EXACTLY as written in that little box.
I handed the cake to the customer anyway, because it COULD have been another "Dark Chocolate" cake. It was not. The customer starts walking away, reads the cake, and turns around. They don't even have to ask. I cut the "(young male)" bit off the gold ribbon and watched the customers vanish into the general sea of desperation.
The Hitchhiker's Guide Reference made my day. :D I'm just reading those again. Love the blog
i especially liked the 42 reference:)
LOL @ Kat
That would have bothered me, too! Isn't it also pronounced nearly the same?
and funny stories, Mystery Baker!
wv: dente
There's a dente in one of those "logs."
aw, several of these even have the little gold axes among the plastic poinsettia. yet i "ax" you--why are there little green evergreen trees on top of the yule log (a log being a cut down tree)? since when do little tiny trees grow on big chopped down dead ones among the mushrooms? these wreckerators have a real issue with scale. goes along with having flotsam santa riding along the bark. speaking of which, shotgun/broom/boob on a guitar log is way too smooth!
and tree rings aren't swirls. they're concentric rings. take a science class, wreckerators!
wv: couslain--Who couslain that poor little puppy on yesterday's first cake?
I'm so excited you featured GKTW today! It's my favorite charity, and I have the crazy volunteer hours to prove it! Merry Christmas to you, and may the karma of your generosity come back to you tenfold!!
Yule logs... as cakes? No thank you. I like to burn my Yule log. Huzzah! Can't burn cake, that would be blasphemy...
IF "wonky wheel shopping carts" equates to "42", does that mean that they are the key to understanding life, the universe and everything? If only I had a babble fish to translate that the squeeky wheel was saying.
As a French person, I have to plead guilty for the log cake. It is a French tradition.
For several centuries, on Christmas Eve, a very large log used to be burned slowly in the fire to ensure a good harvest for the year to come. Then large hearths disappeared and the tradition has continued through cakes.
If you ever come in France around Christmas time, or if you simply google "bûche de Noël", you may get a better opinion of yule log than the opinion created from this piles of...Whatever it is.
Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël.
I am a fan of that Santa riding a log cake.
The log cake wrecks are a hoot but I loved it that you worked the universal answer, 42, into the post. love it!
Did that last wreck start out as a Thomas the Tank Engine cake?
"42"
AWESOME!
I have to say I'm a little surprised that the ASPCA wasn't picked as one of the charities.
yule logs=life, the universe, and everything
@ Alex...
I'm aware of the sarcasm this post. However, seeing that particular PS made me think of all the commenters who may see it and be like"THAT'S not what a yule log is!!". I guess commenting on this particular post about over-thinking readers was not the best time to do it. Next time I'll wait til it makes more sense. Ok with you?
We had ice cream Yule logs yesterday (they're extremely popular in France), and while they were yummy, they did have a fair amount of flotsam on them. Slightly tacky, though not as wrecky as the ones you posted. Just thought I'd share.
As for the post, well, I think you said it all. And the Hitchhiker's Guide reference made me chuckle. :P
Loving the HGG reference!
I'm a little worried over why the Yule Shotgun has a sticker that appears to say 'french bread' on it. :D
I'm pretty sure the "Ho Ho Ho" one says, "Awe my gosh," instead of oh my gosh. I'm from the country, and am fluent in redneck.
Okay, I actually teared up over the "Yule Corn-Nut Turd"... And I'm still laughing... Perhaps it's just because it's late and I'm tired, but oddly, I don't think so!
The first yule log screams "Polywhirl used hypnosis"
Thanks so much for highlighting Give Kids the World. I've been out of town for two weeks, so I only just saw it. They are a phenomenal charity. I've volunteered there and as a seasonal Disney World cast member see families on trips with Give Kids the World enjoying themselves and forgetting their worries for at least a little while.