I've been dying for an excuse to make all the messes that go along with this cake and when Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito say "this is a slightly showy, purely holidayesque affair" the real translation is: you really don't want go through all the bowls in your kitchen just for any old day, so save this one for when you have the time off from work to take on a. the baking & assembly and b. the ginormous sink-full of dishes.

When the host of our little family dinner shindig hinted she'd like a log cake, but wasn't sure if she should ask knowing it would be quite an undertaking, I practically squealed in delight. I've always wanted to attempt a Bûche de Noël, and since my lovely mother gave me Baked Explorations for my birthday I've been absolutely salivating at the chance to make their cooler more distinctly "Baked" take on this classic.

As I was slapping together the cake to take to this year's double whammy awesomeness annual Halloween party/Saints game madness, I realized that a year ago I was making my first decorated cake. I mean yes, there were cakes before last year, but that Nightmare Before Christmas cake marked a turning point when I actually put pen to paper and drafted up a sketch of one of the many crazy ideas flying around in my head and challenged myself to make it look the way I envisioned.

I look back on the past year and all of the late nights, crazy plans and disastrous messes with great fondness. It is so exciting to think about how quickly a year flies by and how we spend our time and who we share it with. It also makes me laugh at my own insanity and appreciate my husband so much more for putting up with me.

On more than one occasion, I've had someone feel bad when they picked up the cake and after the initial awestruck I can't believe you made this moment passes and they ask, "How late did you stay up working on this?" ....yea... Let me just put everyone at ease. While I can be an irrational and quite unpleasant person when I don't get my beauty rest, I'm actually part insomniac/total procrastinator and get some of my best work done under pressure at two in the morning.

Please enjoy this recap of some of the craziness I've whipped up in the middle of the night with the dog and cat watching and wondering what the hell daddy's going think when he wakes up and sees this mess... And make sure to check Crumby out on Facebook to keep up with what I'm working on.