fresh mint olive oil cake with labneh and honey

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This color is real!!! And, no, Kermit was not harmed in the making of this. This is really just a basic olive oil cake that simply has a bunch of fresh mint purée mixed in to give it the most delightfully fresh herbal flavor and of course this bright natural color. It’s inspired by a dessert that Lily, Alana, and I had at The Exchange Restaurant last month that was basically a bowl of crumbled bright green cake topped with yogurt sorbet, a lemony drizzle, and baklava crumble. We ordered it expecting a regular yellow olive oil cake but when it arrived and we saw the color we were like omgomgomg and immediately did that thing where all three of us suddenly block out everything that’s going on around us in order to decipher what’s happening in our mouths and in front of our eyes. We poked at it, snooped around its every nook and cranny, and took very deliberate tastes in order to figure it all out. It’s so good eating with them. The only thing that could have improved such a moment is if one of us had raised up a monocle or magnifying glass. We figured it must have been a few different herbs in there, basil maybe, or parsley even, and then we got on the subject of spinach cupcakes (ew?), and finally had a chat with the server about what all was happening. And it turned out that it was just mint! Which is wild because it didn’t taste specifically minty, the most minty thing about it was that it had a faint version of that fresh feeling you have after brushing your teeth. Past that it was sort of generically herbal, which was cool because it allowed the yogurt sorbet and pistachio baklava crumble to shine through. And above all it was delicious. One of the best most inspiring desserts I’ve ever had. I turned around faster than I’ve ever turned around in my life and flew home and started experimenting with olive oil mint cakes. 

And I came up with this one! It’s a riff on the grapefruit olive oil cake from Yogurt book and it is really fun to make. You might think that the mint purée color would fade in the oven but it stays so bright. Sorry I am like one month late for St. Patrick’s Day, but actually I’m just 11 months early. 

I originally intended to slather this in a classic sweet cream cheese frosting but at the last minute before bringing it to Mackenzie’s birthday party I decided to go deeper into my nod to The Exchange dessert and just use labneh with a honey drizzle and pistachios. I loved it because it was so aggressively not sweet. It was definitely not your typical happy birthday sugary cake though so because of this I was trying really hard to figure out what all of my friends thought of it. The thing about being surrounded by so many nice Midwest people however is that they will not tell you if your cake is bad!! Emily said it tasted *fancy* so there is that?? I’ll leave you with this: when it comes to assembling this cake, choose your own adventure. If you’re hankering for a classic sweet frosting use a standard cream cheese frosting. But if you’re celebrating a sophisticated 30-year-old birthday party then try out the labneh option (as written below)! You can always add more honey drizzles. If you can’t decide, use some of the cake scraps as test bites and concoct your frosting accordingly.  

Fresh Mint Olive Oil Cake with Labneh and Honey

Makes one 2-layer 6” cake

Ingredients

Cake:

1 c (50g) firmly packed fresh mint leaves

1/2 c (118g) whole milk or unsweetened almond milk

1 1/2 c (190g) all-purpose flour

1/2 c (56g) almond meal

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

Zest of 1 lemon

3/4 c (150g) extra virgin olive oil

1 1/4 c (250g) sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

 

Assembly:

About 1 1/2 c (338g) labneh

crushed pistachios

honey and/or turbinado sugar

lemon zest

sliced kumquats, optional

Clues

Preheat the oven to 350ºf. Grease and line the bottoms of two 6” pans with parchment and set aside.

Rinse the mint leaves and then ring them out very well. In a high powered blender like a vitamix, blend the mint and milk together until very smooth. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, almond meal, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and lemon zest. In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil and sugar until combined.  Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking very well after each, and then add the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mint mixture in three alternating additions, whisking after each until just combined. Pour into the pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean; begin checking for doneness at 25 minutes. Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely. Level off the tops.

Spread half of the labneh on one of the layers and top with pistachios, honey or turbinado, and a little bit of lemon zest, and then place the other cake layer on top and spread on remaining labneh. Decorate as desired with pistachios, honey or turbinado, lemon zest, and sliced kumquats, if using. Enjoy! 

-yeh!

mint chocolate chip cookies

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all of my dreams right now are filled with mayonnaise and salami sandwiches on brioche and pizza corner pizza at judy’s tavern and chicken pot pies, and no amount of butter fried matzo and gruyere sandwiches will fix this. what are the rules about it being sundown *somewhere*? can i have chametz if it’s sundown in australia right now? can i crawl into a bed made of steamed bun and donut???

*googles images of bagels*

on the bright side, i have fallen in major wuv with this matzo chilaquiles recipe and am planning to make it with flour tortillas after today. also fargo passover was a great success and i got down with some serious shakshuka this weekend because my friends san fermin stopped by on the way from their show in minneapolis to their show in winnipeg. it was so silly and great seeing them romp around on the farm and i feel like such a mom but they’ve definitely all gotten taller, or i’ve shrank. they gave me a cassette (a cassette!) of their side project, stereo trash, which according to them is supposed to be pretty bad, but eggboy and i listened to it in our buick on the way to drink cider with sheila and dave and it brought us both back to an alternate high school reality where we’re kind of punk-ish and too cool to care about anything, i dunno, i was into it.

speaking of eggboy, he’s really been smelling like spring lately (sweat + dirt) so spring planting should begin here any day now. it was supposed to begin yesterday but there’s rain in the forecast so he’s been putzing around the shop and driving tractors around the yard and coming in for chilaquiles and jelly beans every few hours. maybe we’ll get to see beauty and the beast before planting starts, that or donnie darko. we meant to watch donnie darko on easter because of the easter bunny appearance in it but it turns out it's not on netflix or amazon prime or anywhere (?) can someone loan me the dvd?

not only will i be ending passover tonight with salami, brioche, pizza, pie, banh mi, bagels, and/or donuts, but i’ll also be engaging in these fresh mint infused chocolate chip cookies from andrea’s delightful new book, dishing up the dirt. i love this book! it has this great approach to seasonal cooking that is refreshingly honest, unfussy, and down-to-earth, and andrea’s descriptions of farm life are so beautiful and timeless that they make me want to actually get in the fields and get all dirty and stuff. bonus: so many of the recipes are heavy on the tahini, yay! 

these cookies are basically a really fantastic soft chewy chocolate chip cookie that remind me of the cookies from my junior high cafeteria (which is a really good thing), and they’ve been infused with mint! you know how i feel about chocolate and mint. the extra step of infusing butter with mint makes your kitchen smell sooo good and it eliminates the need to wait for your butter to soften so it is a big win in the world of chocolate chip cookies. they’re the type of thing that you can scoop into balls, freeze, and bake one-by-one as needed. and next time i think i’m going to try infusing them rosemary! that would be good, right??

mint chocolate chip cookies

makes about 12 large cookies

from dishing up the dirt by andrea bemis
 

ingredients

1/2 c (1 stick) good-quallity unsalted butter, chopped into small pieces

1/2 c firmly packed fresh mint, roughly chopped

1/2 c firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

1 egg, at room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

heaping 1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips, plus additional for topping cookies

clues

place the butter and mint in a small saucepan over medium heat. melt the butter, swirling the pan occasionally. the butter will foam and froth, then crackle a bit as it cooks. a few brown bits may form, and that's totally fine. once the mint is fragrant (after 2 to 3 minutes), set the mixture aside to cool for 30 minutes (you don't want it to solidify, just to cool down and let the mint infuse the butter). strain the butter through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. use a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to press into the mint leaves to extract any juices.

in a large bowl, beat together the butter and both sugar until the mixture is completely smooth and creamy, 3 to 5 minutes. add the egg and vanilla, beat for 1 minute longer.

in another large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, scraping down the bowl as needed. fold in the chocolate chips and continue to mix until well incorporated.

scoop the dough into a ball; place it on a piece of parchment paper, wax paper, or plastic wrap; and flatten it slightly into a thick disk. cover and refrigerate it for 1 hour. about 15 minutes before you're ready to begin baking, place racks in the center and upper third of your oven. preheat the oven to 350ºf and line two baking sheets with parchment.

use a scant 1/4-cup size scoop to form the dough into mounds on the prepared baking sheets, placing no more than 4 cookies per sheet. leave about 3 inches between each cookie; they'll spread while they bake.

top each cookie with a few extra chocolate chips and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until they're golden and lightly brown on the bottom. let the cookies cool for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack. let one baking sheet cool to room temperature before reloading with the remainder of the dough.

store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days or freeze them for up to a couple of months.

-yeh!

mint coconut chocolate cake

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I needed to improve my cake track record because, you know, there was valentine's day and then in Arizona when I tried demoing tahini buttercream in a 90 degree tent it got all gloopy and ploppy. So I called a quick meeting with my editorial calendar and very subtly changed the words “salad pizza” to “mint coconut chocolate cake.” Because I love using coconut milk in chocolate cake for the rich, almost fudgey texture that it lends, and the super target has started stocking fresh mint again just in time for St. Patrick's Day! And I simply cannot think of a better threesome than coconut, mint, and chocolate.

lemon, feta, mint

peter, bjorn, and john

cheese, tortillas, ketchup

chocolate, tahini, more tahini…?

Anyway, the fact that I subbed salad for cake did not mean that I was an unhealthy ursula for the rest of the week. On the contrary, this week was one of those wonderful awesome weeks where at the beginning of it I sat down and did dinner planning! I do that once every five weeks or so and it’s just the best, I should really do it more often. I sit with my dinner planning notebook, a very large stack of cookbooks, my notebook where I keep my grocery lists, and the internet opened up to about 30 different good looking recipes, and then I compose four days of meals, leaving Friday open for pizza Friday. This week’s theme was yogurt because did I tell you that I am writing a yogurt short stack book??? It will be out a year from now and I am so excited because yogurt is one of my very favorite ingredients, not just for the flavor and texture, but also because it makes me feel de-puffed. As in, it has the exact opposite effect of eating a bunch of salt.

So we ate farro and kale with yogurt green goddess, yogurt marinated chicken (I am extra excited about this recipe), a yogurt frittata, yogurt on tacos, yogurt fattoush… and on top of all of this we went to the gym every night (!!) so am I feeling like a million bucks and ready to poke fun at it all with a week of schnitzel in Berlin? Maybe so! Or maybe I'll hunt down a vegetable in Germany, which I have never been very successful at since I am always so enthralled by Amerikaners and Brezeln and Döner kebabs, but there is no time like next week to change all of that. Do you have a favorite salad in Berlin? Tell me tell me.

But Molly what happened to the cake?? 

We had one large slice and then I redecorated it by frosting the inside where the slice was taken out so that it could lock in all of the moisture:

And then we brought it over to Emily and Evan the cow farmer along with a hotdish because they have a brand new tiny human in da house!!! Yay! I am like a little bummed that spontaneous gin and tonics and cheesy pickles with Emily at the Toasted Frog have been put on temporary hold, but I am also really getting into this new hobby of making freezer meals for E and E. It's so fun. Expect some more freezer meals up on this blog. 

So this cake is essentially this chocolate mint cake, oomphed up with coconut milk, coconut oil, and a bit of coconut extract. Mint and chocolate are awesome together but I often find I want a bit more richness to support it and coconut does just that. It also makes the cake part dairy free, so if you have a great dairy free frosting or want to mix up a quick coconut milk with powdered sugar glaze, you’ve got an awesome df dessert option on your hands. The cake pictured here is six inches-- this batter is enough for four six-inch layers, but I gave the fourth layer to eggpop as a thank you for driving us to the airport. You could also make a two-layer eight-inch cake. Or 24 cupcakes. You know the drill. 

mint coconut chocolate cake

makes one 2-layer, 8-inch cake or one 4-layer, 6-inch cake (see notes above)

ingredients

10 fresh mint leaves

1 can full-fat coconut milk

1 3/4 c sugar

1 3/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 c coconut oil, melted and cooled slightly

1 tsp coconut extract

2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 c boiling water

 

frosting:

10 fresh mint leaves

3 sticks unsalted butter

4 c powdered sugar

1/2 tsp coconut extract

1/8 tsp salt

2 tb coconut milk

 

assembly:

food coloring, sprinkles, marzipan, rubber stamps, all optional but all very fun

clues

preheat oven to 350.

grease two 8-inch round cake pans or four 6-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment.

muddle the fresh mint leaves in a saucepan and pour in the coconut milk. bring to a simmer over medium heat, and keep it at a low simmer (lowering the level of the heat as needed), stirring often, for 15 minutes. remove it from the heat, strain out the mint leaves, and measure out 1 cup of coconut milk. set it aside to cool slightly and save the remaining few tablespoons of coconut mint milk for the frosting in the refrigerator. discard the mint leaves. 

in a large bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. in a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, mint coconut milk, coconut oil, coconut extract, and vanilla extract. (it's important to make sure that the milk has cooled enough so that it doesn't cook the eggs, and that the eggs aren't so cold that they firm up the oil.) whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and then gradually stir in the boiling water. pour into cake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking 8" cakes for doneness at 28 minutes and 6" cakes for doneness at 25 minutes.

let cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then turn the cakes onto a lightly greased cooling rack.

to make the frosting, muddle the fresh mint leaves in a saucepan and add the butter. melt the butter and heat over medium low for 15 minutes, stirring. strain out the mint leaves and then add the butter to a large metal bowl. place the bowl in an ice bath and use an electric mixer to beat it until it becomes pale and fluffy. (alternatively, you can let it sit overnight at room temperature, allowing it to firm back up.) beat in the powdered sugar, coconut extract, and salt, and then add 2 tablespoons of the reserved coconut mint milk. when creaming the butter, it may look a little grainy and congealed, but keep on beating it, and add a bit more coconut milk if you'd like, which will help smooth it out. 

to assemble the cake, mix in some green food coloring to the frosting if you'd like. spread a layer of frosting between each layer and then frost all over the sides and top. top with additional frosting decorations and sprinkles. to make a little marzipan label, cut out a marzipan square and then use rubber stamps brushed with a tiny bit of gel food coloring to stamp out your words! enjoy!

-yeh!

cake stand by anna wallace! 

preserved lemon pappardelle with fried pine nuts, feta, and mint

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molly on the range goes to print today. hallelujah! all of my fears about typos and clarity were at an all time high this week. i started to second guess some things that i thought were funny when i first wrote them and wondered if they weren't funny at all. at first i thought, well, nothing is funny after you've read it 5,000 times. but then i realized that pitch perfect 2 is still funny after watching it 5,000 times. so that's what kept me up at night this week. i started drafting answers to questions that i'm afraid people will ask when the book comes out, in case they don't understand things. i'm probably being silly, or maybe i'm just paranoid because i'm extraordinarily sleep deprived. but in general i am very excited to be one step closer to have all of my favorite recipes in a physical object that i can splatter paint with soy sauce, give as gifts, and just pet like a small animal.

the one other thing that kept me up at night this week was tel aviv nightlife. i cashed in all of my frequent flier miles for a little college reunion with brian and rob, my bridesmen, and we did some of the best most shameless dancing we've ever done. (it was probably more like stylized jumping than dancing, but whatever.) what i like about the dancing in tel aviv is that you don't have to get dressed up or wait on a long dumb line, there's just an abundance of chill bars with chill humans that aren't overcrowded and which happen to have great djs in one section where you can dance like tomorrow is the end of the world if you want. (fave spots: sputnik, radio, and kuli ama.) it was such a great time! but now i'm so happy to be home, right in time for wheat harvest! and also our garden is like whazzup! 

in the summer i love fresh pasta with just fresh herbs, olive oil, and lemon. leave the heavy sauce for sweater weather, these days i'm all about things from the garden tossed about and served next to a sausage or vegetable from the grill. my little macaroni eggs (well, now they are big macaroni, as you can see!) make this pasta so beautiful and yellow, and i'm using the fresh pasta recipe from my friend emiko's stunning new book, florentine (i'm giving away a copy of it over here, btw). the pasta is surprisingly easy to make and totally luxurious, but if you're short on time or just can't be bothered to get out your pasta maker, the combination of flavors here is still worth ripping apart your mint plant for. it's a combination i cannot get enough of these days: feta, mint, olive oil, nuts, spicy stuff, and either a fresh squeeze of lemon or chopped preserved lemon (which lends a funkier pickle-y flavor that i love, just make sure to rinse them otherwise this will be too salty). it's sort of like a deconstructed pesto situation that's just gotten back from summer vacation in morocco. i'm using preserved lemons from trader joe's, but you can also make your own. and california olive ranch's rich and robust olive oil is my go-to for this since its oomph factor can really hang well with the strong personalities of feta and lemon. 

this is a pasta i would gain 300 pounds for, fyi. 

preserved lemon pappardelle with fried pine nuts, feta, and mint

serves 4

ingredients

kosher salt

1 lb pappardelle (store bought or use emiko’s recipe, below)

1/3 c california olive ranch rich and robust olive oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 c raw pine nuts

4 slices preserved lemon, rinsed and finely chopped

1 c lightly packed fresh mint, chopped

Black pepper

1 c crumbled feta

Crushed red pepper

clues

bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it ferociously, and cook the pasta according to the manufacturer’s directions. 

While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until a drop of water sizzles when flicked across the surface. Add the garlic and pine nuts and cook, stirring, until they’re lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Add the preserved lemon and half the mint and cook, stirring, for another 1-2 minutes. Add the cooked pasta to the pan, reduce the heat to low, and toss the pasta to coat it evenly in the mixture. Give it like 20 turns of black pepper. Top it with the remaining fresh mint, the feta, and a few pinches of crushed red pepper. Serve immediately and enjoy. 

emiko's pappardelle

from emiko davies' book florentine

serves 4

ingredients

200g plain flour

200g semolina, plus extra for dusting

4 eggs

clues

Sift the flour and semolina onto a flat work surface and create a well in the middle with your hands. Crack the eggs into the well. Gently beat the eggs with a fork in a circular motion until they become creamy. Begin incorporating the flour and semolina little by little until it becomes too difficult to use the fork and then gather the dough with your hands. Knead for about 10 minutes or until it becomes elastic. Let the dough rest, covered so it does not dry out, for at least 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into two or three portions. With a pasta rolling machine or a rolling pin on a floured surface, roll out the dough until about 1 mm thick or until you can see your fingers through the other side. If rolling by hand, roll from the centre outwards.

The noodles should be cut to about 2–2.5 cm wide. Fold the dough lengthways over itself three or four times (dust with semolina between each fold so they do not stick) and then cut across the short side of the folded pasta. Use a sharp knife for a straight edge or a fluted pastry wheel cutter for a ruffled effect (good for catching sauce). Unroll the pasta, shaking it out, dust generously with semolina and shape into little ‘nests’ of equal portions – 100 g is equal to one serving. Cover under a dish towel or plastic wrap until ready to use.

Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water for about 3-5 minutes, or until silky and cooked al dente.

-yeh!

thank you, california olive ranch, for sponsoring this post!