marzipan challah

things i've been enjoying lately

offering everyone who comes over a buttercup squash from our garden

using the eggdad's typewriter to make cute little food labels, greeting cards, business cards, secret notes...

the fact that the sun has finally been going down before our (almost) nightly 10pm veep date

picking chamomile flowers from our garden (does anyone have any tips on a) getting the itsy bitsy bugs off of them so i can b) dry them and make tea?)

my tuesday night pottery class! i made a plate yesterday.

dark chocolate and sea salt kind bars

picking the caramel off of the caramel apples that have been sitting on my counter since saturday

making an extra over-the-top eye roll whenever someone tries to correct my pronunciation of "caramel"

getting excited for rosh hashanah!!!! 

...you know, i don't even remember what i did for rosh hashanah last year. i feel like i might have been salty about the fact that eggboy would have had to have been on a tractor during one of my favorite holidays. but this year i'm embracing it and planning to pack up a badass brisket picnic (complete with pomegranate brisket tacos) to bring out to the tractor. i've already told him to make sure that he's driving a tractor with a buddy seat so that i don't have to perch on his armrest and get my bum all sore. i'll also be packing up: apples from our apple trees, honey from eggsister's man's bees, and challah, obviously challah. even gluten-free eggboy will eat challah.

about this challah: the combination was bound to happen sometime, judging from my love of all things marzipan and all things challah. breads bakery, in new york, makes a marzipan challah, and i went on a wild goose chase trying to figure out how they do it. pictures of it kept popping up on my instagram and i kept wishing i could go-go-gadget x-ray vision it, but finally i just went for it and made a marzipan frosting to swirl about. the results were sweet and moist* and almondy and doughy and delicious. perfect for the new year.

(shortly thereafter, marian came to the rescue (again) with the intel that breads makes theirs by simply wrapping dough around almond paste and then braiding it. so i tried that and it was also delicious.)

*what is a synonym for moist? i hate subjecting you guys to that word. 

---

marzipan challah

makes two loaves (easily half-able if you just want one)

ingredients

bread

1 1/2 c warm water

2 tb dry yeast

1/2 c + 1 tb sugar

6 c all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting (you might need way more, so i like to have 1-2 more cups on hand)

2 tsp kosher salt

a pinch of cardamom

5 large eggs

2/3 c oil

1 tsp almond extract

filling**

14 oz marzipan, grated or finely chopped

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 c sugar

1 1/2 tsp almond extract

topping (optional)

slivered almonds

pearl sugar

**for a non-dairy or easier option, you can simply omit the butter and sprinkle the marzipan and sugar onto your dough when shaping. it will still be super delish.    

clues

In a measuring cup or small bowl, combine the water, yeast, and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Let sit for a few minutes until it gets foamy on top.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, mix together the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, flour, salt, and cardamom. In a separate bowl, whisk together 4 of the eggs, the oil, and the almond extract.

When the yeast has proofed, add it to the dry ingredients, immediately followed by the egg mixture. Mix to combine and knead, either on a floured surface, or with the dough hook for 7-10 minutes, adding more flour as needed, until smooth.

Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover with a damp towel, and let rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

to make the filling, beat together all ingredients. the marzipan will stay a little chunky.

on a lightly floured surface, divide the dough into two equal parts. working with one part at a time (keep the other part covered by the damp towel), roll the dough out into a large rectangle, approximately 10 inches by 14 inches. spread half of the filling evenly onto the dough, leaving a 1-inch perimeter, and then roll it up like a jelly roll (the long way). pinch the edges to seal it shut, and then coil into a spiral shape with the seam facing down. place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and repeat with the other half of the dough. let the loaves rise for 30 minutes while you preheat your oven to 375.

whip up the remaining egg with a splash of water and brush it onto the loaves after they've risen. sprinkle with slivered almonds and pearl sugar, if using. bake the loaves for 20 minutes, rotate them and tent them with foil, and then bake for another 20 minutes.

let cool briefly and enjoy!

-yeh!

p.s. it's come to my attention that some of you are having trouble commenting. oyoyoy! i'm working on having this fixed right now. feel free to bop over to my Facebook page to comment in the meantime! 

raspberry pistachio mini pavlovas + a giveaway

haaaaappy monday, everybody!!

how were all of your weekends? mine was as relaxing as can be, right down to the socks with birkenstocks that i wore outside not once but twice (!!!) for warmth (low was in the 30s!), comfort, and to imitate my style icons the olsen twins. i did all the fall things: hosted an apple picking party, made caramel apples, made chicken with apples, made a (sadly flopped) honey cake with apples... and then wrapped things up by watching miss america at the town pizza parlor and it was magnificent.

today a thing called beet harvest pre-haul starts! it's basically the amuse-bouche of beet harvest: you get all of your equipment ready, start picking from your fields, and take in a sampling of beets to the plant so you're ready to get your harvest on come october first. there is a big truck filled with beets in our yard right now! i am tempted to yoink one and do recipe experiments but i'm afraid to climb up onto the truck. actually mostly i'm afraid to go outside right now because of the cold. 

ok now let me tell you about these pavlovas. first, the person behind these pavlovas, who is also one of my favorite bloggers ever, stephanie! i feel like she doesn't need an introduction because if you read my blog then you've seen the zillion times i've linked to her blog and if you've seen her blog even just once you know she is the tops. she is also the tops in real life, we were each other's dates to the saveur awards when our men couldn't make it, and if we lived in the same town, i could see some major kimmy gibbler/d.j. tanner action happening. her joyful and fun personality oozes from her work the way the hollandaise oozes from this grilled cheese. i've made so many of her recipes and they are all delicious while managing to be shockingly simple... which is why it is about time that her book comes out! i can't sing enough praise about it. it's inspiring, it's approachable, it's creative, it's flavorful, it's nothing you don't want, it's fit for pretty much anyone. i see these pictures and think, shit, i cannot make that. and then i read the recipes and i'm like, wait a second, i think i can. i think i can. i think i can. and so pictured here is the first ever pavlova i ever did make. and despite me planning on having people over to help us finish them, eggboy and i demolished them and didn't even look back. 

they're fluffy, airy little creatures with a perfect amount of sweetness, sourness from the raspberries, and savoriness from the pistachios. they also look cute, like a cartoon version of a dessert. but they're real! and real good.

raspberry pistachio mini pavlovas

from stephanie le's book, easy gourmet

makes 14 mini pavlovas

ingredient

2 large egg whites

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 c sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp white wine vinegar

1/4 c pistachios, roughly chopped

1/2 c whipping cream, whipped into soft peaks

1 c raspberries

chopped pistachios, to serve

clues

preheat oven to 350ºf.

with an electric mixer, whip the egg whites with the salt until peaks start to form. add the sugar in a slow stream. continue to whip until the eggs are shiny and stiff. sprinkle in the cornstarch, vanilla, vinegar, and pistachios. gently fold to combine.

scoop the meringue into equal mounds on a parchment-lined baking sheet. place in the oven and immediately turn down to 300ºf and bake for 25 minutes. turn the oven off and leave in for another 25 minutes and then remove from the oven. cool completely.

to serve, top with softly whipped cream, raspberries, and an extra sprinkle of chopped pistachios.

note: if you want super-green pistachios, blanch them in boiling water for 10-15 seconds. strain, then rub with a clean towel to remove their skins. if the skins are still clinging, keep the pistachios in cold water as you rub.

---

annnnd.... i'm giving away a copy of easy gourmet! to enter this giveaway, leave a comment with the best dessert you've ever had! this giveaway is open to u.s. residents only.

update 9/22: this giveaway is now closed and the winner has been notified. thanks so much everyone!

-yeh!!

sprinkle cake

not the possibility of my wedding dress being too tight after eating too many cheesy toasts, not the unidentified dot on my face that i'm pretty sure is housing a 100-foot ingrown hair, not the upcoming beet harvest that will have eggboy working 27 hours a day. no. the thing that has kept me up at night these past two months has been: a homemade version of funfetti® cake. 

it's just sprinkles in white cake.

it's just sprinkles in white cake.

it's not just sprinkles in white cake. 

attempt number one: 

i began with the number one rule of anything funfetti®-inspired desserts, which i picked up from marian, who learned it from a momofuku milk bar class: use clear imitation vanilla. that is the flavor that will launch you right back into a babysitters' club slumber party world, complete with scrunchies and friendship bracelets. 

i combined this knowledge with my go-to vanilla cake, which is based on these gorgeous cupcakes. it draws its moisture from butter and oil, and gets a slight zing from yogurt. i folded in a heavy dose of sprinkles, thinking my job was pretty much done.

and the end product was fine, just fine. i would have been happy to serve it to my mother and we would have enjoyed it a bunch.

however.

it could have been sprinklier, the colors could have popped more, the sprinkles could have been scattered more evenly, and the texture could have been closer to the original (lighter). all of these things kept me from saying yes.

i also wanted to know what other colorful objects might work.

sprinkle testing:

here are sample cakes with all of the sprinkles i own, as well as chopped colored marzipan and a series of found objects, including fresh mint leaves, petals of bachelor button flowers, black sesame seeds, chopped dried cranberries, and chopped dried mango. it's clear which sprinkles held onto their colors throughout the baking process. and one more thing is clear: it's very important to fold those suckers in thoroughly (see: the clumps in the artificial sprinkle samples), as in, it's probably best to fold them in before you pour the batter into the pan so you can have more room in the bowl to make sure you do a thorough job. the cake with the found objects, which i was really excited about, didn't look too terrible up close, it just tasted weird with all of that fresh mint. sadly, none of the natural sprinkles worked very well (i really didn't want to believe that the 2.9 pounds of naturally dyed sprinkles i just bought wouldn't work, but despite numerous attempts, they wouldn't), and the sanding sugar dissolved. so i narrowed my favorites down to four choices and then baked full layers with them, adding more sprinkles than the first test, and being careful to fold them in thoroughly:

top: artificially dyed homemade sprinkles on the left, artificially dyed store-bought sprinkles on the right; bottom: artificially dyed marzipan on the left, artificially dyed nonpareils on the right.

and here they are all stacked up for attempt number two-ish:

the layers are, from bottom to top: store-bought sprinkles, marzipan, nonpareils, and homemade sprinkles. many of the sprinkles fell right to the bottom and still the colors didn't pop too well. also, eggboy thought that decorating the cake with sprinkles on the outside took away from the sprinkles on the inside. three points, eggboy!

ok so what did i learn from this step?

the sprinkles need to be suspended in thicker batter and the batter needs to be whiter. how do we make a batter whiter? eliminate egg yolks. how do we make a batter thicker? with the help of john the baker from the town bakery, i learned three ways: use a higher protein flour (cake flour has a low protein percentage, so perhaps sub some of it for all-purpose flour), use less liquid ingredients and more solid ingredients (butter instead of oil, for example), whip the egg whites to peaks before folding them in with the rest of the ingredients.

my next cake used 1 cup of all-purpose flour and 1 1/2 cups of cake flour, as well as more butter, less oil, and no yogurt. eliminating the acidic ingredient yogurt eliminated the need for baking soda. i also sprinkled some sprinkles on top of the batter after pouring it into my cake pans, to make sure there were sprinkles towards the top of the layers (i picked this up from reading momofuku milk bar's birthday cake recipe).

attempt number three (part ap flour + part cake flour), in the style of pacman:

it worked splendidly. the sprinkles were evenly distributed and the cake was flavorful and moist. it had a dense crumb, which i really like, however, boxed cakes are usually much lighter than that, so i wanted to test my luck and try the more-butter option with an all-cake flour mix. (i was trying my best to avoid having to whip the egg whites to peaks because i h8 h8 h8 dirtying up bowls when not necessary.)

annnnd...

weeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

light, flavorful, evenly distributed with sprinkles that pop, reminiscent of all of my single digit birthday parties. success. 

final cake, with marzipan bunting: 

an update (two years later!): i've updated a few things in this recipe! the original recipe is posted over at food52, and the updated recipe below is what went in molly on the range. a few minor changes: i now prefer to bake this cake in three shorter laters than two tall layers, allowing for a more even frosting distribution which helps more moisture circulate throughout the cake. also with these shorter layers, you now longer need to sprinkle more sprinkles on top of the batter. i've also tweaked the flour situation just a bit to eliminate the need for cake flour. a combination of all-purpose flour and cornstarch gives a most delightful fluffy crumb! (stay tuned for more updates after a million more test runs in what will probably be two more years...)

---

sprinkle cake

makes one 3-layer 8" cake or 24 cupcakes

ingredients

for the cake:

2 1/2 c flour

1/4 c constarch

1 tsp kosher salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 c unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 c sugar

4 large egg whites

1/4 c flavorless oil

1 tb clear imitation vanilla (I prefer McCormick brand)

1/2 tsp almond extract

3/4 c whole milk

1/2 c rainbow sprinkles (artificially colored cynlinders, not nonpareils, sanding sugar, or anything naturally colored)

for the frosting:

1 3/4 c unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 1/2 c powdered sugar

1/8 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp clear imitation vanilla

1/4 tsp almond extract

2 tb whole milk

clues

to make the cake:

preheat the oven to 350ºf. grease and line the bottoms of three 8-inch cake pans or line 24 cups of two muffin tins.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking powder.

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the egg whites, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the oil and the extracts.

With the mixer running on low speed, add the dry mixture and the milk in two or three alternating batches and mix until just barely combined, Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the sprinkles until they're evenly distributed. Distribute the batter among the cake pans or muffin cups, spreading it out evenly if using cake pans.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Begin checking for doneness at 25 minutes for cakes and 20 minutes for cupcakes.

let cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.

to make the frosting: 

in a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth and gradually beat in the powdered sugar. add the salt, extracts, and milk and beat to combine.

frost the cake or cupcakes as desired and enjoy.

---

-yeh!

pumpkin cake + semifreddo push pops

push pops are a fall seasonal food, right? because soccer games? or was that exclusive to my suburban world? i just seem to have all these bowl-cut-wearing memories of running around in the fall with my little shin guards and cleats on, probably losing to the other team, and then not caring at all because look, the ice cream truck, and heeeeere come sticky fingers fingers from a flinstone's push pop. those things were *in my worst falsetto voice* the best. i remember having to warm them between my hands a little bit so that they would loosen up out of their cardboard tubes and then i would demolish them and take apart the tube device and play with the different parts. they were fascinating. v v fascinating. 

so now that i'm a sophisticated fancy lady, these guys have gotten sophisticated and fancified by way of ice cream's quirkier cousin, the semifreddo, and soft autumny pumpkin (!!!!) cake. these push pop molds are fun little creatures and i wanted to do them justice by making something that really takes advantage of their clear cylindrical nature. any sort of mini cake would be cute in these, but a semifreddo-filled mini cake, which probably wouldn't stand that well on its own or assemble that easily, has found a perfect home in this mold. the cake will hold its shape neatly, you can peek at the little layers (hello!), and you can keep them in your freezer for whenever you have a cake and ice cream emergency.

pumpkin cake + semifreddo push pops

makes 12-16 pops

made with the help of my all-time favorite pumpkin bread and giada's semifreddo

ingredients

cake

1 3/4 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

a pinch of ground ginger

1 3/4 c sugar

7.5 ounces (or about 3/4 c + 2 tb) pumpkin puree

2 large eggs

1/2 c vegetable oil

1/3 c water

semifreddo

4 large egg yolks

1/4 c + 2 tb sugar

1 tsp vanilla

a pinch of salt

1/2 c heavy cream

assembly

round push pop molds

sprinkles

clues

make the cake: preheat oven to 350, line two 9 x 13 pans with foil and grease the foil.

in a medium bowl combine flour, baking soda, and spices. in a large bowl, combine remaining ingredients. mix in the dry ingredients, pour into prepared pans, and bake. begin checking for doneness at about 20 minutes.

let cool, wrap in plastic wrap, and then freeze until ready to use, up to one week.

make the semifreddo: in a double boiler, whisk together egg yolks, 1/4 cup of sugar, vanilla, and salt. heat over simmering water, whisking constantly, until it reaches 160 degrees. transfer to an ice bath to cool.

whip up the heavy cream. gradually add remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar once the cream gets thick. whip to stiff peaks. gently and gradually fold this into the yolk mixture.

assemble: cut out 1 1/2-inch circles of cake. layer them in your push pop molds with sprinkles and 1-2 teaspoons of semifreddo between each layer. freeze for a few hours. enjoy!

-yeh!

---

this post is part of becky's eat seasonal roundup! check out a bunch of other seasonal goodies here!

---

sponsored by: laguna wholesale, sellers of all sorts of dessert-related goodies! you can use the code "grateful5" to get 5% off of your first order!