fresh mint olive oil cake with labneh and honey

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.  

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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! 

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-yeh!

walnut feta kibbeh, a stone fruit blender cake,

and all of these other silver lake good times...

for one week last month i lived in a little house on a hill in silver lake, los angeles, and cooked the days away.

a work-cation of sorts! done in a kitchen equipped with: a blender, some forks, no mixing bowls, and a very cute old oven. 

every morning i picked herbs and tomatoes from the garden and every night brought something new and bright and bursting with the glee of **california produce**. 

there were eggs in a basket made with rainbow potatoes from the hollywood farmers' market, salads upon salads upon salads galore, and in a moment of small triumph: lily and alana guided me through my first ever fish cooking experience, a pair of branzini, stuffed with herbs and lemon and olive oil we found in the cabinet. 

heather came over with maple butter and cheddar scones, alana brought poke bowls and that fancy matcha bread, and then there were those two 105º days spent with the freezer and our popsicles. (i tried to run it all off but, you know, in silver lake, that's just kinda like huffing and puffing and walking up hills.) at the end of the week, lily brewed up some rye dough onto which we dumped all of the leftover vegetables and petaluma cheese, and that was my pizza friday pizza, enjoyed on the redeye out of town.

the whole thing was like living in a secret clubhouse up in a tree and to get in you just needed to bring your appetite and a vegetable. it was all so fresh and delicious. 

today i'm sharing two recipes that can be made in even the most bare bone kitchens: a vegetarian version of kibbeh, which is a levantine meatball made with bulgar, and an interpretation of huckleberry's blueberry cornmeal cake, made with stone fruit and a blender and a slightly paired down ingredient list that allowed me to buy a few less groceries for my one short week. i did a lot of eyeballing in my rental kitchen, and used a literal tea spoon (meant for tea, not baking) for all of the small measurements. but that's ok in both of these recipes! the kibbeh, especially. you really just want it to be a consistency that will hold its shape when fried, past that you can add any seasonings or herbs or cheese that you please. and for the cake, obviously feel free to use a regular electric mixer instead of a blender. i was just so excited that multiple respectable cakes came out using this method. so, idk, make these in your home kitchen or bring them on the road the next time you vacation somewhere with a kitchen!  

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walnut feta kibbeh

makes about 4 servings

ingredients

3/4 c cooked bulgar
1 c toasted walnuts, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c fresh mint, finely chopped
1 c crumbled feta
2 large eggs
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
A few turns of black pepper
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin

oil, for frying

for serving:

yogurt or tahini, a salad, more feta, fresh herbs, a squeeze of lemon 

clues

combine all ingredients.

heat a layer of oil until shimmering (if using olive oil, take extra care not to let it smoke), fry up a test patty of the mixture and taste it. adjust seasonings as desired. roll the mixture into small balls and fry, in batches, turning until all sides are golden brown.

serve over a salad and drizzle with yogurt or tahini and a squeeze of lemon. top with additional feta and fresh herbs, if desired.

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stone fruit cornmeal blender cake

adapted from huckleberry's blueberry cornmeal cake

makes one 10" cake

ingredients

1 1/2 c flour
3/4 c cornmeal
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 c coconut oil, at room temperature
1 c sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 c olive oil or canola oil
3 tb maple syrup
1 tb vanilla
2 c full-fat plain yogurt
A bunch of stone fruit, sliced
chopped fresh rosemary, if you want
2 raw sugar packets, if your airbnb host has any to spare

clues

preheat the oven to 350ºf. line a 10" cake pan with parchment and set it aside.

in a medium bowl, mix together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

put the coconut oil and sugar in a blender and blend it all up. add the eggs, one at a time, blending after each. blend in the oil, syrup, and vanilla. add the dry ingredients and blend a little and then add the yogurt and blend to combine. pour into the cake pan, top with stone fruit, rosemary (if using), and raw sugar (if using) and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at 1 hour. let cool for 15 minutes in the pan and then serve. 

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-yeh!

coconut rainbow popsicles

i am staying in the world's cutest airbnb in silver lake this week. it has a tomato plant, a vintage oven, a huge stash of za'atar, and a million stairs leading up to it that make me feel like i'm in a treehouse! (a climate controlled treehouse, thank heavens, because it was one hundred and twelve degrees this week!! don't smell me.) it also has some pretty delicious light pouring in at all hours of the day, so lily and alana and i made our #popsicleweek popsicles in my little kitchen. we used coconut milk, lemongrass, and the most beautiful pluots from the hollywood farmers' market, and then each took a layer to do our thang and make the popsicle equivalent to friendship bracelets. kewt. they tasted like grownup pudding pops, 10/10 would recommend. 

alana infused her layer with lemongrass for the pale green top,

lily mixed in some pluot juice for the bright pink center,

i made a malabi-inspired mix with rosewater, vanilla, and cinnamon,

and then we did a chocolate drizzle and bedazzled them with pistachios, rose petals, coconut, and glee. 

and then! billy, king of popsicle week, waltzed right in with adrianna and approved of the whole thing and it was, as the kids these days would say, gucci.

my life as a silver lake person has been so tasty and stone-fruit-filled, i can't wait to tell you more about it. but i just have a few more sleeps here, so i'm gonna go cook a branzino because mastering the art of branzino is going to be one thing i do before i leave california. bye!

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malabi pops

(this is layer #3 of these coconut rainbow popsicles. click here for the lemongrass layer and here for the pluot layer.)

ingredients

1 c full-fat coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
1/2 tsp rosewater
a pinch of kosher salt
a pinch of cinnamon
2 tb maple syrup, or to taste

optional toppings:

melted chocolate, crushed pistachios, rosebuds, toasted coconut

clues

make your lemongrass layer, pour into the bottom third of your popsicle molds and freeze for 45 minutes. make your pluot layer, pour on top of the lemongrass layer and freeze 15 minutes. insert popsicle sticks and then freeze for another 15 minutes. 

mix together all ingredients for this layer. taste and adjust as desired. pour on top of the pluot layer and freeze for an hour. drizzle with chocolate and top with pistachios, rosebuds, and coconut, if desired. enjoy!

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-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!