PÍO V (Nicaraguan Christmas Cake) # Baking Partners Dec '13 Challenge

With Christmas just a week away, it was only apt that Christmas cake be chosen as the theme for this month's Baking Partners Challenge. However when Swathi asked me to suggest few recipes I was at loss.. I am a newbie at the food scenario and have very little knowledge of  traditional recipes. I learn and cook from the books and websites that I find attractive and that explains why this blog does not have a specific direction. Anyhow a week later Swathi suggested that I look into Yule log recipes which led me to these ones... 

1. French Yule Log by Flore of Florilège Gourmand  from Use Real Butter
2. A Vegan version of Flore's French Yule Log from The Healthy Kitchen
3. Bûche de Noël (Williams-Sonoma Recipe)
4. Vegan Buche de Noel from Bon appetit

Besides the Yule Log Cakes, I also found this Nicaraguan Christmas Cake recipe that looked very appealing. So I included it in the list.. and decided to try this before I get started at the French Yule Log..

  

Pío V though called a Christmas Cake is really a gourmet dessert with a cake base and a custard topping that is typically served in Niacaragua during Christmas. It is made up of marquesote, sopa borracha, and manjar. Translated literally marquesote means cake, sopa borracha means drunken soup referring to the a rum-laced syrup that the cake is soaked in and manjar means custard. Apparently, this dessert is named after the 16th century Pope Pius V,  however there is no written evidence or verbal conjecture bearing proofs of it.