rosemary whole wheat snack cake

i get it now, hawaii. i get why everyone i've ever met who has been to hawaii goes bonkers at any mention of it and i'm pleased as plum to say that after just three days here, i, too, will roll my eyes to the back of my head and groan uncontrollably at any mention of this gosh darn beautiful state. 

my pops calls his little brown lake house in michigan the relaxation capital of the universe, but he's wrong. it's here, where the sun-filled days begin with snap chatting the ocean and end with nougats and giggles in the hot tub. if the week before my book deadline was a stress level 10, and a deep tissue massage is a one, then i am currently at about a -30. 

i am off to go bask in this nonsense by sitting on the meditation lawn that is right outside my door, but i will leave you here with a cake. 

before i left for my trip, i had been playing around a bunch with white whole wheat flour! my mom used to use it all the time and i was always a little confused, like, is it white flour trying to be a little healthier? or is it wheat flour that's let itself go just slightly? it turns out it's none of the above, it's actually its own type of wheat that's just as healthy as regular whole wheat but milder in flavor, making it easier to sub it for white flour. a sneaky kind of healthy! i'm very into this. it does still have a slight bit of that great nutty flavor, so i've thrown some into this cake that i'm calling a snack cake. because if it's got the healthiness of whole wheat and a name like "snack," you're welcome to have a slice at any time of day, you don't need to wait for a special occasion.

a big part of the inspiration for this cake was king arthur's white whole wheat flour, which can be traced all the way back to the farmer who grew the wheat. sweet! so in the spirit of farm to cake, i paired this wheat with eggies from macaroni and rosemary from our dead rosemary plant. (the great thing about a dead rosemary plant is that it doesn't stop working, it just starts drying the rosemary for you!) a sprinkling of citrus zest pulls the rosemary and nutty wheatiness together for a nice dense afternoon cake, and there you have it. happy baking! 

---

rosemary whole wheat snack cake

makes one 8" square cake

ingredients

3/4 c king arthur unbleached white whole wheat flour
1 c king arthur unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tb dried rosemary, very finely ground in a spice grinder
3/4 c unsalted butter, softened
1 c sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste or vanilla plus
3/4 c whole milk
1/4 c sour cream

glaze:
1 c powdered sugar
4-5 tb heavy cream

orange zest, for topping

clues

preheat the oven to 350ºf. grease and line an 8” baking dish and set it aside.

in a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, salt, baking powder, and ground rosemary. in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar on medium high speed until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. add the eggs one at a time and then add the vanilla. reduce the speed to low and add the milk and dry ingredients in 2 or 3 alternating additions and then add the sour cream and mix to combine. pour the batter into the pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at 28 minutes. let cool for 10 minutes in the pan on a rack, remove to the rack and cool completely.

to make the glaze, whisk together the powdered sugar and 4 tablespoons cream until smooth and spreadable, adding additional cream if needed. spread all over the top of the cooled cake and top with a sprinkle of orange zest. slice and enjoy. 

---

i used the following king arthur flour products in this recipe: white whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, vanilla plus, and 8" baking pan. thank you so much, king arthur flour, for sponsoring this post! and p.s. if you're looking to add more whole grains to your baking, check out k.a.f.'s handy guide!

-yeh!

los angeles

hello from the air! i am en route from los angeles to maui with alana, who is asleep already, lily, who is crying about hunger games, and stephanie, who is dusted with a pleasant coating of furikake due to a minor snacksplosion upon boarding. i can’t blame her, we were up before the sun to catch our flight after a very wild night of meat, gossip, and backstreet boys sing-alongs in koreatown. my stop in los angeles was entirely too short but i managed to squeeze in time with loved ones and some very meaningful firsts—some more overdue than others:

1. my first bite of spam. wow! spam musubi packs a deceptive amount of satisfaction into one compact delight. it’s, like, fried baloney sandwich satisfying and upon first bite it shot straight to the top of my list of things i’m most excited to experience in hawaii. 
2. my first time subbing out the bagel in my bagel and lox with *wait for it* a freshly baked popover, c/o karen. it was a textural revelation since lox and popovers require a very similar amount of energy to be exerted in order to bite through them. i would do this again, absolutely.
3. my first visit to canter’s!!! you didn’t tell me they had beaver mustard! what a jolly condiment. ordering a pastrami sandwich and an egg cream so far from new york made me a little uneasy, but from the comfort of a big squishy booth and over talk of paparazzi and time travel, i slowly settled in for a proper first canter’s experience. 
4. my first shaved ice. which also jumped right to the top of my hawaii list. so fluffy, so sweet, so perfect with black sesame mochi bits hidden throughout. 
5. my first time going directly from an 85-course korean barbecue carnivorgy to an alta california taco obligation where no menu item was left unordered and no hyperbolic shouts of joy were spared during the passing of the chorizo vampiros. 
6. my first spork tattoo sighting. should i reconsider my decision not to get a tattoo in hawaii?
7. my first dollar taco. small but extraordinarily mighty. 
8. my first gjusta, my first olive & june, my first boozy push-up pop (!!!).
9. my first time meeting adrianna, karen, lynn, and kelly, who are all every bit as wonderful as their internet presences suggest.
10. my first zankou chicken garlic sauce, which looks like nothing but tastes too good to be true.

phew! i am off to go have some seconds now. seconds of water, because getting dehydrated on a plane is a fear that i have. thank you, los angeles and all of your lovely people, for a perfect pre-hawaii weekend <3 <3 <3

-yeh!

roasted pistachio chocolate bars

it's possible that after this weekend i have plumb turned into a dumpling! i can't be certain, i'm afraid to look in a mirror 😬  you would be too if you ate a pile of potstickers and steamed buns the size of an eight-year-old. oof da! obviously it was all worth it in the name of reenacting our annual dumplings of the world chrismukkah party for #mollyontherange, and do you know what this means now??? we can finally take down our chrismukkah bush. happy spring! 

book shooting is almost dunzo, mum and marshy are up here assisting, and this time next week i will be on my way to hawaii with lily, steph, and alana. i am last-day-of-school excited. nay, i am first-day-of-camp excited. i've never ever been to hawaii, and every time i tell somebody that i'm going, their eyes roll straight to the back of their heads, their voice alters in pitch, and they say something to the effect of hawaaaaiiii is uhhhmazzzzing. so, i'm really excited to join the enlightened group of *people who have been to hawaii*, and i'm extra excited that it will be with three of my very favorite lady humans!

i do have some questions though. maybe you can help me? most of these are probably googleable, but allow me to think out loud:

what is the time change? will it be such that i will wake up easily with the sun and have a pleasant few moments of quiet instagram time before my west coast sisters appear? or will it be the type of thing where i will want to pass out at 3pm and eat breakfast toast at 11pm?

will a ukelele be playing at all times? (kind of like vienna and their waltzes?)

do i get a lei when i step off the plane?

will my cell phone work?

how tasty is spam???????

is my aversion to bananas going to be an issue? 

what sorts of wild animals run about? are their squirrels? wild turkeys? aardvarks?

i think those are all of my questions.

to celebrate our lift off, we're posting travel snackees today! steph's got spam and egg onigirazu, lily's got matcha cacao truffles, alana's got furikake snack mix, and i've got these here pistachio chocolate bars! i found a massive stash of pistachios in my pantry because i am a nut hoarder. it's the type of situation where i love them so much but i'm afraid to use them because then i'll have used them all up. but finally i had to use them because otherwise they would have gone bad. so i ground them up into a chewy marzipan situation, dunked them in chocolate, and sprinkled them with all sorts of goodies like freeze dried strawberries, sprinkles, and this sesame/fennel/orange/ginger mix. i am so excited to giggle on the plane and eat chocolate on the way to hawaii. yipee!

---

roasted pistachio chocolate bars

makes 8

ingredients

1 1/2 cup roasted pistachios
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon rosewater, optional
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (omit of pistachios are salted)
6 tablespoons light corn syrup

10 ounces dark chocolate

sprinkles, freeze dried fruit, or other toppings

clues

In a food processor, blend the pistachios until they’re very finely ground. (Be careful not to over blend them or you will end up with pistachio butter.) Add the sugar, almond extract, rosewater (if using) and salt and pulse to combine. With the motor running, drizzle in the corn syrup and blend to form a dough. It may still look crumbly in the food processor, but if you squeeze it in your hand it should stick together. Turn the mixture out onto a work surface, roll it out about 1/2” thick, and cut out rectangles about 1 1/2” by 4”. Place the rectangles on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and freeze for 15 minutes.

Melt the dark chocolate either in a double boiler on medium low or in a microwave oven, heating for 30-second increments, stirring after each, until it is smooth and melted. Remove it from heat and stir it until it is no longer hot to the touch. 

One by one, use two forks to lower the pistachio rectangles into the chocolate, flipping to fully coat. Allow excess chocolate to drip off and then place them back on the parchment. Top with sprinkles or other toppings, if using. Harden them in the refrigerator or at room temperature. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

---

-yeh!

cardamom lingonberry hamantaschen

today was hummus day on set for #mollyontherange! i shot hummus, all of its tasty accoutrements, and a few other hummusy things that i am so excited about. for the first time in a while, my constant shoot day snacking hasn't left me feeling like butt afterwards because the last few shoot days were sprinkle cake day, mac and cheese day, and, i can't remember the rest... but today there were vegetables and beans so i feel great! there'd be a lot of tooting tonight if we lived in a world where girls farted.

i am so very glad that the days are getting longer up here. it makes shoot days a lot less stressful because i have more time to get my ducks in a row and tweezer on the parsley and shoot everything i need to without fearing that the sun will go away prematurely. outside, however, all of the snow has melted and it's kind of goopy and gross. macaroni love it though! once again they can go on their little adventures to the back reaches of our lawn, poop everywhere, and take dirt baths in the soon-to-be rhubarb patch. they're so happy. except one, who has just become **broody**. so she's on vacay in the broody buster. tomorrow i'll bring her today's leftover pomegranate seeds and cucumber slices. eggboy says i shouldn't spoil her because then she'll want to be broody all the time. but i'm thinking it's like the price is right and matzoh ball soup, those things are awesome for two days, but then you just want to go outside and poop with your friends. 

hooray for purim being right around the corner! what a fun holiday. we're not totally sure what we'll do to celebrate since grand forks isn't really purim party central, but eggboy still has his noisemaker from like two years ago so maybe i'll just read him the meggilah, let him buzz buzz buzz and then we'll hit the bars. sound good? cool. here are some scandinavian-inspired hamantaschen! ooooooh mash-up. 

---

cardamom lingonberry hamantaschen

makes about 22 cookies

ingredients

1 c unsalted butter, room temperature

4 oz cream cheese, room temperature

1 large egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp kosher salt

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour

powdered sugar, for dusting

about 1 c lingonberry jam

clues

in a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and cream cheese until combined. beat in the egg yolk and then add the vanilla, cardamom, and salt. beat in the flour to form a dough. divide the dough into two parts, wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours.

preheat the oven to 400ºf. line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set them aside.

dust a work surface liberally with powdered sugar and roll out half of the dough until it's 1/4" thick. cut out 3" circles and spoon about 2 teaspoons of jam in the center, fold the edges up to form a triangle shape and pinch the edges firmly. transfer to the baking sheet. repeat with the remaining half of the dough, adding more powdered sugar as needed. bake until lightly browned. begin checking for doneness at 10 minutes. let cool slightly, dust with additional powdered sugar, and enjoy!

---

-yeh!