we're married!!!!!!!!!!

the big fat snow flakes that fell from the sky,

the cake with our smiling eggs, a marzipan heart, halva, and gold,

my new family, 

my old one,

the lace from stoopie's wedding dress tied to my bouquet with a bracelet from mia,

a crab brooch from china and a cuff from mum's mum as my something blue,

the sound of the fugue as we walked down the aisle through a sea of love and rosemary, to eggboy with his egg tears. 

john's perfect speech, the cell phone soundtrack to our vows, the smooches, the sprinkles, the shawls that kept my bridesmaids warm,

eating all of the challah and prosciutto for the buffer for all of the aquavit that fueled the chorus line, the conga line, the hora, and cyndi lauper sing along,

the perfectly timed dinner bell, the late night grilled cheese covered in tons and tons of ketchup, the later night papa john's soaked in garlic butter, the smiley faces and the dancing, the perfect cake, the perfect pies, the perfect soup, the big big hugs,

and my husband.

hehehe.

my husband.

-yeh! (hagen!)

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thank you to our amazing photographers, chantell and brett for these photos!!! more photos to come :)

marzipan moose mousse cake

tomorrow i will become mrs. egg. 

i am the happiest hippo in all of the land and i couldn't imagine a better christmukkah present.

i'm also the most caffeinated hippo because i have been wide awake at 3am almost every night this week with a mind as fast as a racehorse, scribbling to-do lists, writing my vows, stressing out about how i will pee when i'm wearing my dress.

but it's all so fun and amazing!!!! and i'm so excited to wake up tomorrow and frost my wedding cake with stoop, bake pies with mum, string together rosemary boutonnieres with my bridesmaids and bridesmen, gain a gaggle of new wonderful family members, do the hora with my homies, smooch my husband, say the word "husband" a thousand million times, and be showered in sprinkles as my dad plays mozart for the new mr. and mrs. 

ok, i'm gonna cry now.

i hope you are all having wonderful holidays filled with yummy food and lots of hugs! i will be back next week with a new ring and a new name! 

this marzipan moose mousse cake isn't our official wedding cake (that is yet to be decorated by stoop and me), but it's not an egg wedding without chocolate and marzipan! i was inspired by a moose cookie cutter that i found at ikea, and "moose mousse cake" is just so darn fun to say. hehe. so this little guy will be on our wedding dessert table, alongside the sprinkle cake and red velvet.

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this recipe makes one very very very large cake. it requires baking four 8-inch layers and then throwing one massive party so that people can help you finish it. such as a wedding. however, it does halve (and even quarter!) quite nicely, just get your measurement equivalents memorized. you might not be able to fit two entire ikea moose onto a smaller cake, but consider dala horses or teddy bears. the chocolate cake recipe is based on magnolia's, and it is the one i swear by. it's so super moist and rich and perfect, and it doesn't require an electric mixer. the jam i've used here was made by eggcousin elaine, and i like it because she doesn't use any sugar, so it balances out the sweet cake very nicely. 

marzipan moose mousse cake

makes one 4-layer 8-inch cake or two 2-layer 8-inch cakes

ingredients

cake:

4 1/4 c sugar

3 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 3/4 c cocoa powder

1 tb baking powder

1 tb baking soda

1 tb kosher salt

4 large eggs

2 c coconut milk (whole milk or almond milk will also work)

1 c vegetable oil

2 tb vanilla extract

2 tsp almond extract

1 3/4 c boiling water 

mousse frosting:

4 c heavy whipping cream

1 c cocoa powder

1/2 c powdered sugar

1 tsp almond

filling and decorating:

about 9 tb raspberry jam

16 oz marzipan

crushed almonds

powdered sugar, pearl sugar, sprinkles, optional

clues

preheat oven to 350. grease and line four 8-inch round cake pans. 

in a very very large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. in a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, oil, and extracts. add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and then whisk in the boiling water. the batter will be very thin. pour into the cake tins and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at about 25 minutes. cool for 10 minutes in the tins and then turn onto a greased wire rack and let cool completely.

these can be baked up to a week in advance, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, and then frozen. 

to make the frosting, whip the heavy cream to soft peaks and then gradually add the cocoa and powdered sugar. add the almond extract and continue beating to stiff peaks. 

to assemble your cake, level your layers and then place one layer on a plate or cake board. spread with a thin layer of frosting. roll out your marzipan to 1/4-inch thick and cut out a circle that will fit on top of the cake. place it on top and then spread on about 3 tablespoons of jam. place your second layer of cake on top and then repeat this process twice more. cover the cake in frosting. using the remaining marzipan, cut out your moose, and if desired, knead a bit of gel food coloring into some and cut out hearts. stick them onto your cake. surround the bottom of the cake with crushed almonds, and dust the top with powdered sugar, pearl sugar, or sprinkles.

store in the fridge.

enjoy!

-yeh!

citrus confetti cake

even though i had my little wedding cake flop and then chopped off the better part of my left index finger while leveling a cake yesterday, i have been spending these last few days leading up to christmas and the wedding the best way i know how: by baking and decorating cakes. usually when i want to make a cake, i wait until there's a birthday or other party approaching so that there will actually be people to eat the cake, but this week there's christmas and hanukkah and the wedding and a bunch of family and friends in town, so i have a zillion million reasons to make cake and it is a dream come true. 

the cherry on top was that eggboy surprised me with a little tv for the kitchen and cable!!!!! we even get a canadian channel, and it had ice dancing on it yesterday, which i watched while eating a big quesadilla covered in ketchup. cake decorating, ice dancing, cheese, ooh (!) and finally a thin sheet of snow on the ground, it's like the universe *knows* me. 

this citrus confetti cake is going to be my gift at the egg family's white elephant christmas gift exchange! i'm so excited. it comes from april carter's new book, decorated, which has pretty much been my bible all week. i think i've flipped through its pretty pages hundreds of times by now, and it took me forever to decide which cake to make first. i was really tempted by her gingerbread cake with whiskey caramel and apple, parsnip, and rosemary cake, but then when i remembered that citrus can be wintery too (i always forget that), i knew that this would be the one. it even comes with a how-to for homemade confetti sprinkles!! 

i made a half batch of april's recipe out of fear that we wouldn't have enough room to store all of the cakes that i'm making. it's a shame that the kitties are so curious because otherwise we could just put all of these desserts outside in our big farm-sized deep freeze. but it's ok, i've been wanting to use my new mini green cake stand anyway (thanks, egg mama!). the cake halved perfectly. i baked it in two 6" tins instead of two 8" tins, and then the only other thing i did differently was that i used marzipan instead of fondant for the sprinkles because i seem to always have a small chunk of leftover marzipan in my fridge waiting to be used. the cake is delicious-- a nice sturdy crumb, and that curd!! i could have eaten it all with a spoon. i'm so excited to try all of the other cakes in this stunning book! yay, april!! 

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citrus confetti cake

slightly adapted from april carter's decorated

makes 1 large 8-inch cake

ingredients

cake:

450 g (1 lb) unsalted butter

620 g (1 lb 6 oz/ 2 3/4 c) sugar

8 medium eggs

620 g (1 lb 6 oz/5 c) flour

5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

250 ml (9 fl oz) whole milk

grated zest of 4 unwaxed oranges

grated zest of 4 unwaxed lemons

buttercream:

400 g (14 oz) unsalted butter, softened

10 medium egg whites

450 g (1 lb/scant 2 c) sugar

2 tsp vanilla

curd:

5 medium egg yolks

170 g (6 oz/ 3/4 c) sugar

grated zest and juice of 1 pink grapefruit

1 tb lemon juice

110 g (3 1/2 oz) unsalted butter, cubed

to decorate:

colored fondant cut out with a piping tip and set to dry on parchment for a few hours or overnight

clues

preheat oven to 335f (170c/gas 3). grease two 8-inch round, deep cake tins, line the bottoms with parchment, and set aside. 

use an electric mixer to cream the butter and sugar for 3-4 minutes until fluffy. add the eggs one at a time. sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. incorporate half of it into the butter mixture, add the milk, and then add the remaining flour mixture and zests. pour into cake tins and bake for 70-75 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. 

cool for 10 minutes in the tins and then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. 

to make the buttercream, gently heat the egg whites and sugar over a double boiler, whisking constantly, until the sugar has dissolved completely. remove from heat and beat with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form, about 10 minutes. add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time. it may look curdled, but keep beating and it will come back together. beat in the vanilla.

to make the curd, gently heat the egg yolks, sugar, zest, and juices over a double boiler, whisking constantly. whisk in the butter one cube at a time, until all of the butter has been incorporated and the mixture has thickened (about 10 minutes). strain into a shallow container and cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. chill until needed.

level the cakes and then cut each in half so that you have four layers. fix the first layer to a cake board with a small amount of buttercream. fill a piping bag with buttercream and then pip a line around the edge of the first layer (this will stop your curd from escaping). fill with 2-3 tablespoons of curd and then gently press the second layer on top. repeat with the second and third layers and then finish with your top layer. cover the cake with a thin layer of buttercream and then chill for 30 minutes or until firm. cover the cake with a thicker layer of buttercream, pipe on a border or two, and then sprinkle with confetti sprinkles. enjoy!

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-yeh!

mexican hot chocolate

i baked our wedding cake today and it was a disaster. it was funfetti cake, the recipe i spent three entire months of this year on! wtf!!!!!!!!!! it could have been worse. it tastes how i want it to taste and with a fat coat of frosting and our little wooden eggs on top, its face will be saved. but basically i tried to get away with using the wrong size cake pans and i'm pretty sure the oven was too hot, so the middles really sank and the edges are crumbly. maybe this cake will be a metaphor for the life that eggboy and i will lead: a little shaggy and rustic on the outside, but happy and colorful on the inside. eh? ehh? i don't know.

 luckily when i was searching for a recipe that would use up all of my leftover yolks (since the sprinkle cake uses a bunch of whites) i discovered that crack pie calls for the exact amount! so in addition to the zillions of cakes that i have already made and the zillions of pies that mum and i are about to make, we will now have crack pie bars on the dessert table. the newly found upper midwesterner in me can now sleep well at night knowing that we will have bars.  

phew.

here's another hot chocolate recipe! consider this hot chocolate week. this is actually the hot chocolate recipe from hemsley + hemsley that inspired my tahini hot chocolate from a few days ago. the first time i made this was about a month ago, when the first snow flurries came down. eggboy requested hot chocolate and we listened to christmas chipmunks on his record player and it was so gleeful, and it only added to the glee that i felt like i had just discovered a hot chocolate secret in this recipe. it's just so rich and creamy without being too sweet. 

the recipe comes from the hemsleys' new book, the art of eating well full. it's a really gorgeous and colorful book and it makes me want to eat all healthy and stuff. i'm even excited about their salads! there's a bone marrow and watercress salad and a cabbage, bacon, and apple salad... yum. but back to the sweet stuff, here's some hot chocolate! 

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mexican hot chocolate

slightly adapted from hemsley + hemsley's the art of eating well

makes 2-4 servings

ingredients

1 can coconut milk or 1 1/2 c almond milk

3 tb cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 tb maple syrup, to taste, or raw honey

a pinch of sea salt

1 tsp or more of ground cinnamon

a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper

clues

for hot chocolate: whisk everything together (using coconut milk) and warm gently in a saucepan before serving.

for cold chocolate: whisk everything together (using almond milk and raw honey) and serve.

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-yeh!

thank you so much to urban outfitters for sponsoring this post! all opinions are my own. you can find hemsley + hemsley's book and those nifty antler mugs at urban outfitters!