gingerbread terrariums

my friday night began on a bench outside of the sears at the town mall. i ate a cold soft pretzel with honey mustard and worked on my computer while eggboy picked out some birthday tools with his family, because is there any better way to spend a friday night?

i should mention that our town mall is really great and carpeted and has an entire cowboy boot store.

we had plans to see the new hunger games after, and maybe eat a slice of pizza for pizza night, but by the time i could wind my way through the fleece pajama section to find the eggs, eggboy was on his way to the parking lot to revisit tommy the turkey and two kinds of stuffing in the worst way possible. nooooo!!!

three bottles of gatorade, a lot of episodes of the office, and a couple of saltines later, he is finally feeling well enough to fold laundry and stomach some toast. oy vey. poor guy. luckily, my weekend to-do list only consisted of finishing my gingerbread farm and making these gingerbread terrariums, so i was on hand to make tea and toast at a moment's notice. and ok, i might have watched a lot of the office too, which i consider a triumph because for the longest time i just didn't get that show and i felt like such a loser about it, but now i really like it. (does anyone care? no? ok.)

in other news, which probably should have come before news of barf: eggboy is 28!!!! and his dad, who also had a birthday this weekend, is, um, another year older!! we celebrated with a nice low-key brunch. biscuits, eggs, and bacon for us, a little plate of saltines for him. and then i made sarah's fantastic gingerbread for a cake because making a gingerbread farm really makes you crave gingerbread--actual gingerbread, not rock-hard gingerbread walls and roofs. i frosted one layer and slapped it on my new cake stand, and then crumbled up the other layer to use as the "dirt" in these edible terrariums!

i can't take any credit for the brilliant idea to make an edible terrarium. i have geordan to thank for that! the gingerbread and coconut "snow" put a wintery vibe on these, but feel free to use chocolate cake or any other dark cake for the dirt. and go wild with frosting flavors and other decorative goodies! part of me is really tempted to make my terrariums flood with a monsoon of milkshake or hot chocolate... 

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gingerbread terrariums

makes 8-10

ingredients + supplies

1/2 batch of this gingerbread (or other 1 layer 8-inch cake), cooled

8-10 16 oz jars

1 1/2 c frosting (vanilla for snow, chocolate for mud, lemon for... yellow snow?)

ground pretzels for gravel or shredded coconut for snow

tweezers

marzipan kneaded with green food coloring for succulents or christmas trees

rosemary or other herbs

cookie cutouts, mini candy canes, sprinkles, any other fun decor

clues

crumble up the cake into the bottom of the jars to form an even layer and pat it down gently. top with a blob of frosting (it's easiest to use a piping bag for this). top with a thin layer of coconut or ground pretzels, and then use tweezers to position your plants and other decorations. 

to make the marzipan succulents, roll out the marzipan and use small cookie cutters or a knife to cut out little ovals or hearts and then smoosh them together to form a little flower.

enjoy!

-yeh!

this post was done in collaboration with urban outfitters! the mugs in these photos are the 4040 locust antler mug and the classic mason jar mug. thanks so much, urban!!

day-after-thanksgiving rye steamed buns + friday links

ok so i have had just enough corn casserole to get me through the next few weeks until eggmama makes it again for christmas. how about you?? how was your thanksgiving?! do you own stock in stretchy pants yet? my thanksgiving was spent making lindsay lohan (oreo + peanut butter) pie and dancing around to on the town in front of the television as eggboy miraculously avoided a train wreck while making his first ever turkey (and stuffing and more stuffing and pie). i'm so proud of you, eggboy!!!

most of the things we ate were delicious: the corn casserole, tennessee's brussels sprouts, hawaii's mochi stuffing, and california's sourdough kale stuffing were my favorite. we are still deciding what we thought of the salty pluff mud pie. and i don't know if i had eaten too much by the time the grape salad was passed around, or if the sour creamy slimy appearance got to me... but i just couldn't do the grape salad. i'm sorry, grape salad, i wanted to like you. 

now it's snowing and i am back to working on my gingerbread village: i've assembled all of my buildings, i figured out how to make royal frosting icicles, and rudolf is taking a dip in a jolly rancher hot tub. mum kept asking where the sukkah was, but i opted for a huppa to be more relevant with the timing because holy eff, i am getting married in less than a month!!!!!!! ahh!!!

for my final west elm recipe, i have these day-after-thanksgiving rye steamed buns, which were inspired by the typical day-after-thanksgiving sandwich and milk bar's thanksgiving croissant! turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, all cozy in a bun. so don't eat all of those leftovers yet, go proof some dough and steam some bao! get the recipe here.

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friday links!!

instant ramen with american cheese 

"Do you ever dream up what the Big Gay Ice Cream menu would have looked like in 1621?"

emoji search at nyt cooking is the best early christmas present ever.

i miss hong kong!

this linda lomelino interview!! i love her so much.

ok, thanksgiving is over, i know, but i still want to make these stuffing dinner rolls.

it is a loaf of bread, it is a bagel. it is a bagel bread loaf. omg.

michelle's asian style thanksgiving though!!

this gingerbread cake is gonna get made today.

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happy friday, everyone!!

-yeh!

p.s. i also did a fun little thanksgiving-y radio interview in the midst of my pie making, you can hear it here!

prosciutto + grape pizza

every surface of my kitchen is covered with gingerbread house walls and yesterday i listened to sufjan christmas. the holiday season is upon us!! i am so excited. 

 i know i know, it's not thanksgiving *yet* so technically it's not the holidays *yet* and eggboy won't let us put up our chrismukkah bush forest *yet*, but still. i've already moved onto christmas and hanukkah food, which works out perfectly because last week when the united states of thanksgiving came out, eggboy decided that he'd be planning our thanksgiving menu (!!!). i'm relieved and excited but mostly scared because today i watched him peel an onion and i'm surprised that all of his fingers are still intact. 

obviously there will be grape salad. and a turkey and eggmama's corn casserole. other than that i'm going to be blissfully unaware of what's happening in the oven as i build my gingerbread farm and watch the parade and hope that the eggs don't have any traditions that will require me to say what i'm thankful for out loud in front of people. 

not that i don't like making lists of things i'm thankful for. 

i just get sooooo scared that people are going to get too mushy and start crying at the dinner table. all i want is to be on my way to the holiday season with a pitstop for corn casserole and peanut butter pie. i might even save room for pizza and conquer the usual dilemma on the day after thanksgiving that is, "do you have pizza since it's a friday? or do you eat a salad since you just had thanksgiving?" meh! 

this recipe is just slightly adapted from my friends kim and phil's new book, food truck road trip. it originally comes from the urban oven in los angeles. the sweet grapes, salty prosciutto, fontina and rosemary work so well together, and the crust gives me hope that one day i will no longer have to miss kesté as much as i do. kim and phil are the sweetest and the recipes in their book, which come from food trucks across the country, are pretty much all the definition of perfect drunk food. there's a bacon-wrapped hot dog with pineapple and wasabi mayo, a pad thai taco, and an unreal looking mazemen. one day when i'm old and married and not having to fit into a wedding dress (i.e. 4 1/2 weeks away, but who's counting), i'm gonna cook my way through this sucker. spam musubi and all.

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prosciutto + grape pizza

makes 2 14-inch pizzas

ingredients

2 tsp (6g) yeast

1 c (236 ml) warm water

2 tsp (10g) kosher salt

1 3/4 c (174g) flour

1 c (130 g) fontina cheese

12 red california grapes, halved

1 tsp dried rosemary

2 tb (30 ml) olive oil

8 slices prosciutto

clues

in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the yeast and water and let it sit for 5 minutes, until foamy. in a separate bowl, combine the salt and flour. gradually add the flour and salt mixture to the yeast mixture and mix on medium until combined. add just enough flour as needed to bring the mixture from a batter consistency to a dough consistency. it should be sticky, but not lumpy. transfer the dough to a large greased, airtight container and let it rise for 24 hours.

transfer to a lightly floured surface, divide the dough in half, roll each half into a ball, cover and let rise for another 2 hours.

preheat a pizza stone, or two if you have them, for 1 hour in the oven at the highest temperature you're comfortable with. (i heat mine to 500... one day i'll have the nerve to use my broiler, like the original recipe in the book says.) flatten each ball of dough out into a 14-inch circle. top with fontina, grapes, rosemary, and olive oil. slide onto your baking stone and bake; begin checking for doneness at 5-6 minutes, and take it out when the cheese is melted and the crust has reached the desired browning.

top with prosciutto, slice, and enjoy!

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-yeh

this post is sponsored by grapes from california. all opinions are my own! 

italian rainbow cookie cake

my older sister, stoopie, is celebrating her last birthday of her 20s today! oy! it feels like only yesterday that i was underage and romping around with her id, drinking screwdrivers and skim milk white russians as "22-year-old stoopie." we've been celebrating these past few days in chicago with our family, lots of food, and our signature impressions of al dente noodles. she's been asking me every few minutes if i got her this flask bangle as a gift, and i'm starting to think that she's actually serious about wanting one, but too late, i already got her cute earrings. 

speaking of booze though, this year was such a big stoopie year because a few months ago, she passed her first sommelier test!!!! i'm so excited for her to take the next test soon so she can officially be called a sommelier, and so her name and title can kind of rhyme. (phonetically, she will be so-molly-yay-jenna-yay.) one day i'm gonna bribe her to move to grand forks so that she can be the sommelier for my cake house, and we'll host 30-course wine and cake tasting menus.  

speaking of cake, i made her a birthday cake! an almond cake because i have all of these vivid memories of us making almond cakes when we were little. she would always have first dibs on the can of almond paste and if i was lucky, she'd give me a little nubbin of it. our family loves almondy things. we have our valentine's day italian almond cake tradition, but oddly, we never had italian almond cookies growing up.

i didn't even discover these cookies until i moved to new york, and even then, for the longest time, i had no interest in them. i didn't know that they were almond flavored, as i'd only heard them referred to as "rainbow cookies." i'd see them when i went to buy black and white cookies at zabar's or fairway, but i questioned why anyone would buy these artificially colored random looking things when they could buy a black and white cookie. i was skeptical, but the seed was planted in my brain when i saw my little new yorky cousins gobbling them up during rosh hashanah, and then finally, when i was served a fancy freshly made one at torrisi, i was convinced. i discovered that these little guys aren't cookies, they're dense, rich almond cakes, glued together with jam, and cut into perfect little bites. it was the punch of almond that got me, these things are loaded with almond paste.

i became so obsessed that stoop and mum made a batch in (what they thought were) juilliard colors for my senior recital. some time after that, i fished out miniature versions of them from the bottom of a sundae at kutsher's with devra and my cousin eitan, before we even discovered that we're cousins. that year around the holidays, i made a shitton using torrisi's recipe and fed them to the earliest version of san fermin, which was huge and had some lucius.

full disclosure: a younger, less experienced and more stressed out version of myself wrote this about my first time making them. i've since chilled out, but there is some truth in my earlier frustrations: making these cookies/this cake is a process. it takes an entire day if you're fast, two days if you cruise, and maybe even three if you feel like blanching your own almonds and/or making your own almond paste. it's a cake for your holiday break, or one to call in sick for. but, trust, it's worth it.

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italian rainbow cookie cake

makes one 8-inch cake

ingredients

6 eggs, separated

1 1/4 c + 2 tb sugar

1 1/3 c almond paste, chopped

2 c unsalted butter, softened

1 tb lemon juice

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp kosher salt

2 2/3 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp red food coloring

1 tsp green food coloring

1/2 c + 2 tb apricot jam (or 6 tb apricot jam and 4 tb raspberry jam or vice versa)

12 oz dark or semisweet chocolate chips

1 c heavy cream

cocoa powder for dusting, optional

dinosaurs, optional

clues

preheat oven to 350. grease and line as many 8-inch cake pans as you have. you'll need to make six layers total. (i have three cake pans, so i baked the layers in two batches, but if you just have two, you can bake in three batches.)

in a large bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. gradually beat in 6 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating until you have stiff peaks.

in another large bowl, beat together the remaining cup of sugar, the almond paste, and butter. add the egg yolks, one at a time. beat in the lemon juice and almond extract, and then gradually sprinkle in the salt. add the flour and beat until combined.

fold the egg whites into the almond paste mixture and then divide the mixture evenly into three bowls. mix the red food coloring into one, the green food coloring into another, and then leave the last one as it is.

divide each of these mixtures in half and pour into separate cake pans. (again, if you don't have all six cake pans, just fill however many you've got, and then cover the batter that you're not using until it's ready to bake.) use a spatula to spread the batter as evenly as you can in the pan and then bake for 10-12 minutes, until the tops are just set, or no longer shiny and wet. let cool slightly in the pans, run a knife around the edges, and then carefully flip onto a greased cooling rack or greased sheet of parchment. bake remaining layers.

when the layers are cool, stack them up on a cake board or plate, spreading 2 tablespoons of jam between each. don't put jam on the top. wrap the sucker tightly in plastic wrap and then refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. 

to make the chocolate ganache, place the chocolate chips in a large bowl. heat the heavy cream until it is just starting to boil, and then pour it over the chocolate. let sit for 30 seconds, and then stir it all together to get a smooth ganache. you can either pour the ganache over the cake or refrigerate the ganache for an hour, whip it up until it's pale and fluffy, and then frost the cake with an offset spatula (this is what's pictured). decorate your cake how you'd like, dust it with cocoa powder, add dinosaurs, and enjoy!

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happy birthday, stoopie!!

-yeh!!!