coconut

sprinkle macaroons

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Sup, homies! Happy spring and also happy snow day (!) which leaves us with the best case scenario: a beautiful wintery day where the sun stays up long enough to enjoy it on the drive to (and maybe even from) the gym. These kinds of days are delicious because you get the coziness of the snow and the energy of the extra light, and the light has that perfectly diffused snowy quality that is all fluffy and cloud like. Is there a name for this type of winter weather that seeps into spring? Like Indian Summer, but for winter? And don’t say something like Annoying Winter, that’s not the point of this exercise. 

Speaking of exercise, I’ve been on a remarkable health kick, spawned by a sudden urge to eat kale four times a day. I’ve been eating kale and eggs for breakfasts, kale grilled cheeses for lunches, kale tacos for snacks, kale salads for dinners, I’m definitely going to get sick of it really soon but for now I’m riding it out and feeling excellent. The Adventures of Kalegirl and Eggboy!! Also, World Championship Ice Skating is on! Which is great, obviously, but did you also hear about the 13-year-old Russian figure skater in Junior Worlds who became the first female to land two quads in a program in competition??? Bonkers! The future is now! Additionally, I’ve gotten into so many awesome books recently, like Alon Shaya’s new cookbook, Jessica Merchant’s new cookbook, Stephanie Izard's Gather and Graze, and Call Me By Your Name, so if there was a sunny side of the street to be walking on right now, and if I actually walked anywhere, I'd be there. That's what's going on in my world!

But enough about kale and books, let’s talk about sprinkles. I feel a little funny that I’ve never funfetti’d macaroons before. I don’t know why it took this long but the other day a giant box of sprinkles from Beautiful Briny Sea arrived and I immediately felt compelled to fold them into egg whites, condensed milk, and coconut to make the first macaroons of the season. They were so tasty! Crisp on the outside, rich and moist on the inside. And how do you make a tasty thing tastier? Dip it in chocolate. It felt like the right thing to do, and then it felt more right to coat the chocolate with sprinkles. Eggboy said it was too many sprinkles! Can you believe he let those words exit his mouth?! I was stunned. I love the extreme amount of sprinkles because they add a fantastic crunchy quality that you don’t often find on a macaroon. And they’re fun to look at. And sprinkle flavor is good!! These ones are at least. (Use sprinkles you’d want to eat by the spoonful because you’re essentially doing that here.) I used these chocolate sprinkles in the batter and these rainbow sprinkles on the bottom.

All general sprinkle-flavor dessert rules apply here: do not use sanding sugar in the macaroon mixture because the colors will bleed and use clear imitation vanilla for that nostalgic birthday cake flavor that will also keep your batter bright white. As with almost all of the macaroons that I make these days, these are based on Danny Macaroons' delicious basic macaroon recipe. And speaking of macaroons, I wrote a little piece about them for this cool new huge Tablet feature that you should check out, 100 Most Jewish Foods. 

Happy almost Passover!

sprinnkle macaroons

makes 16

ingredients

1 c (283g) sweetened condensed milk (reserve the rest of the can to add to your morning coffee!)

2 tsp clear imitation vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 (14 oz) bag sweetened shredded coconut

2 large egg whites

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 c (48g) rainbow sprinkles, plus about 1/3 c (63g) more for topping and dipping

3 oz (85g) chocolate (any kind!)

clues

preheat oven to 350ºf. line two baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

in a large bowl, combine the condensed milk, vanilla, and almond extract. mix in the coconut and set aside.

in a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until stiff peaks form. 

fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture and then gently fold in the 1/4 cup of sprinkles. spoon lightly packed 2" balls of the mixture onto the baking sheets, 1" apart and sprinkle the tops with more sprinkles.

bake until golden brown; begin checking for doneness at 18 minutes. remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes on the pans. transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

place the remaining 1/3 cup of sprinkles in a shallow dish. melt the chocolate in a microwave in 30-second increments, stirring after each, or in a saucepan over low heat, stirring often. dip the bottoms of the macaroons in the chocolate, scrape off any excess, and then dip the chocolate in the sprinkles. place back on the parchment paper and let cool at room temp or in the fridge. enjoy!

these can be kept at room temperature for about 3 days or in the fridge for up to a week.

my dad's coconut cream pie!

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A few years ago, my dad, who has always been more of an eater/human garbage disposal than a cook, casually started mentioning his “famous coconut cream pie.” I would get text message pictures on pi day of this pie, or he would just throw it into everyday conversation about dessert, and one time when our family convened in Los Angeles he had brought an entire pie on the airplane from Chicago. This coconut cream pie thing all seemed to happened out of nowhere, I don't remember him making it when I was little, it just became his "thing" all of a sudden! And I don’t know how it became famous or if it actually is famous, I think he just started calling it that one day?!?? I asked him about it once and he named someone from work who thought it was famous or something… so he went with it. Stoopie and I eventually just shrugged it off and went with it because why not??

And then a lot of things became clear when I made the connection that Eggboy, who is also nary a cook, has his one pie that he makes and, on good years, considers to be very famous. And then I thought: Am I, as a deeply loyal member of #teamcake (well, until very recently), forcing all of the pie-loving humans in my family to step out of their comfort zones and make their own pies? And then I thought: 🙄🙄🙄 I should shut up and not make this about me. 

So then I decided that I shouldn’t dwell on the origins of this pie and whether or not it actually is famous and instead I should learn how to make it. So! I texted my dad for the recipe and he sent back a picture of a printout of a Martha Stewart recipe from 2010 that had some very important annotations in the margins. Martha’s recipe was your typical pudding pie, made with a chocolate cookie crust and topped with whipped cream and toasted coconut. But, as my dad had penciled in, it should be made with 80 chocolate cats (referring to the Trader Joe's cookies), not the 30 wafers that it called for, and it should be made in a springform pan, not a pie pan. And the pudding should be made in a medium saucepan, not a small saucepan. Idk if there is an exact reason for the cats other than that they’re cute and you get to call for “80 cats” in an ingredient list which is fun, but the reason for the springform pan is so that you can see the whipped cream on the sides. And I like the look, it’s so geometrically pleasing! 

I took the recipe for a test run before my dad’s visit, and because our nearest Trader Joe’s is a million miles away, I went the old fashioned route, ordered a plump lil cat cookie cutter online, and made my cats. And because I was making them from scratch, I thought why not make the cats themselves coconutty?? So I threw in some of bob's red mill coconut flour, and this completed their journey to becoming coconut cocoa coco cats. (Coco is one of our farm cats who usually gets out shined by Sven because she is less of a dog cat, but she’s great and plump like these cookies and I named her!) I wanted to make these cocoa cocos with just coconut flour but it turns out that coconut flour is mainly a flavor enhancer, as opposed to a substitute for all-purpose flour. Too much coconut flour will make dense grainy cats, so you just need a little of it to get good flavor! And because they’re plumper than Trader Joe’s cats, you only need about 40 of them. 

I think the only other change I made from my dad’s/Martha’s recipe was to use unsweetened coconut, since it’s easier to control the sweetness that way and since I love the look of the toasted flakes on top. I think pops agreed! I tried to get away with skipping the step where you bake the crust because I typically like a denser moister cookie crust, but he would hear none of that. It had to be crispy like a cookie, he said. And once I stopped being lazy and added that baking step back in, I saw what he meant. Overall I think our pie kicked butt!! It's got a big thick crust (we love crust in this family!!!!), a pudding that is just sweet enough, tons of whipped cream, and a great rustic yet clean aesthetic. It’s definitely worthy of being famous. Right?! Right.

You know what your Thanksgiving dessert table needs? This. And you know what can be made ahead of time?? This!

coconut cream pie

makes one 9" pie

ingredients

For the cats:

1 1/2 c (190g) bob’s red mill all-purpose flour
7 tb (50g) bob’s red mill coconut flour
1 c (80g) unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for dusting
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 c (225g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 c (150g) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp coconut extract

For the crust:

5 tb (63g) unrefined coconut oil
1/8 tsp kosher salt
1/3 c (27g) unsweetened shredded coconut

For the filling:

2 3/4 c (660g) whole milk
4 large yolks
2/3 c (132g) sugar
1/3 c (43g) cornstarch
2 tsp vanilla bean
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 1/4 c (100g) unsweetened shredded coconut

For the topping:

1 1/2 c (360g) heavy whipping cream
1/2 c (40g) unsweetened coconut flakes
Shaved chocolate or chocolate sprinkles

clues

to make the cats: preheat the oven to 325ºf. line two baking sheets with parchment paper.


in a small bowl, whisk together the flour, coconut flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. mix in the vanilla extract and coconut extract. with the mixer running on low speed, add the flour mixture and beat until just combined. it will still be a bit crumbly. pour the mixture onto a work surface and give it a few kneads to bring it all together. (at this point you can wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour, up to overnight, but I find that the dough is stiff enough that this isn't totally necessary).
on a work surface, roll out the dough to 1/4" thickness, dusting with cocoa powder if the dough is sticky, and cut out small cats or 1 1/2" circles. transfer them to the baking sheets, 1" apart (using a small offset spatula helps with this step). re-roll the scraps and cut out more rounds. 


bake the cookies until the tops are no longer shiny, about 12 minutes. let cool on the pan. Cookies can be made up to a couple of days in advance and stored at room temperature.

To make the crust: Preheat the oven to 325ºf. Line the bottom of a 9” springform pan with parchment and set it aside. In a food processor, combine 40 of your ugliest cats (you'll have some leftover and since those are staying in tact you want them to be the pretty ones) with the coconut oil and salt and pulse until the mixture is sandy and starts to clump together. Add the coconut and pulse just a couple more times to get it evenly distributed. Press the mixture firmly into the bottom of the pan, pressing it up against the sides to give it a 1-1 1/2” tall crust and bake until set, 25 minutes. Let it cool. 

To make the filling: In a medium saucepan, whisk together the milk, egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, and salt. Cook over medium high, whisking constantly, until thickened. Stir in the shredded coconut and pour into the cooled crust. Refrigerate for 2 hours, until set. (This can be done up to 2 days in advance; keep covered in the refrigerator.)

To make the topping: With an electric mixer or in a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the heavy cream to stiff peaks. Spread it on the pie. Toast the flaked coconut in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until golden brown. Let it cool and sprinkle it on the pie. Top with shaved chocolate or chocolate sprinkles and refrigerate until ready to serve. When you’re ready to take it out of the pan, run a small offset spatula around the edge and carefully remove the sides. Enjoy! 
 

-yeh!

Thanks to bob's red mill for sponsoring this post!

malabi macaroons

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happy almost passover!! i spent the weekend in new york trying to get as sick of chametz as possible by way of dizengoff pita, breads bakery bourekas, xi’an dumplings, and sprinkle cake!! spoiler: i didn’t get sick of chametz and i don’t think i’ll ever get sick of it.

it was a 1 1/2 day trip that was supposed to be more like three. oops! but if you’re going to have an unintended 30-hour layover due to batshit weather delays, i couldn’t possibly think of a better way to spend it than with my minneapolis homies, over pizza and pastries. so in the end i had the loveliest unexpected few days.

i was in new york for the cherry bombe jubilee, which was just as sweet and delightful as it sounds. is the word jubilee not the best? it was packed with hugs, with old friends, with new friends, and with friends i’d internet fangirled over for such a long time but had never actually met. i demoed a sprinkle splatter cake with my new friend jen, and then also sat on a panel about blogging with daphne, joy, jocelyn, lyndsay, and deb! it was nerve-racking to be in front of such a huge room of people and i almost dropped a glass bottle of kombucha up on stage but we had a great time and decided we should probably start a band. 

one of the questions that daphne asked was about our go-to hostess gifts. i had macaroons on my mind because i’d just come down off of a week of making them every single day, so i said macaroons. they travel well, they come together extraordinarily quickly, they’re fit for gluten free and k for p friends, and they don’t have to be eaten immediately if by chance you're way too stuffed for dessert. like all of the macaroons that i make these days, they are inspired by the recipe in danny macaroons’ book. danny’s were the macaroons that made me love macaroons and get over those canned manischewitz plops that i grew up with. they are crispy on the outside, chewy and moist on the inside, and a standard for passover desserts that is so high, you won’t even want to stop making them once passover ends.

these guys are flavored like malabi, the middle eastern rosewater milk pudding. i like mine with toasted pistachios and a bit of cinnamon and cardamom, and here i’ve added a little bit of sour fruitiness from some raspberry purée (bonus: it turns the glaze millennial pink-ish). they are rich, floral, warm, and bright, all at the same time and they are exactly what you need to fuel a fierce afikoman hunt! 

alright, i'm at mum's house in chicago now and we have a billion people coming over tonight, so i gotta go start the brisket! 

malabi macaroons

makes 16 - 18

ingredients

1 c sweetened condensed milk (reserve the rest of the can to add to your morning coffee!)

1/8 tsp cardamom

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp rosewater

2 tsp vanilla

14 ounce bag sweetened shredded coconut

2 large egg whites

1/4 tsp kosher salt

 

for the glaze

2 ounces fresh raspberries (or sub 2 tb raspberry jam)

About 1 c powdered sugar

1/8 tsp rosewater

a pinch of kosher salt

 

chopped toasted pistachios, for topping

clues

preheat oven to 350ºf. line two baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

in a large bowl, combine the condensed milk, cardamom, cinnamon, rosewater, and vanilla. mix in the coconut and set aside.

in a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until stiff peaks form. 

fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture and then spoon 2" balls of it onto the baking sheets, 1" apart.

bake until golden brown, begin checking for doneness at 18 minutes. remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes on the pans. transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

for the glaze:

Place raspberries in a fine mesh sieve and give them a rinse. Place the sieve over a bowl and use a stiff rubber spatula or wooden spoon to smash them and press the juices and purée through the sieve into the bowl until you’re just left with the seeds in the sieve. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the sieve to get the stuff that’s sticking to that down into the bowl. You should be left with about 2 tablespoons of seedless puree. If it’s a tiny bit more or a tiny bit less, that’s fine. Add 1 c powdered sugar, rosewater, and salt and mix to make a thick glaze. If it's too thick, add a few drops of water to thin it out, and if it's too thin, add a few more spoonfuls of powdered sugar. it should be the consistency of a thick glue. 

spoon the glaze over the tops of the macaroons and top with a sprinkle of pistachios. enjoy!

they can be kept at room temperature for about 3 days or in the fridge for up to a week.

-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!