spring

rose rose cookies + philly scenes

in ,

hey everyone! great news, i still fit into my mom jeans after my trip to philly where i ate at every single one of michael solomonov and steve cook’s restaurants in 48 hours. i’d like to thank benjamin franklin for having his bridge so close to my hotel which, paired with the coldplay spotify radio station and consistent 69º temperatures, allowed for highly enjoyable 3-4-mile morning jogs that helped me feel less irresponsible about engaging in so much eating research. also, defo could not have done it without the help of brandiego, jorge, brett, zoe, and sarah, who were also miraculously in town visiting and helped me tackle mountains of donuts and boloney sandwiches and more.

every single bite was sooo great, which i expected. but at every meal there were things that were more than great, which had that wild over-the-top x-factor that left me no choice but to stop mid-bite and do an audible o-face. they raised the bar for what a donut should taste like and how a fried cauliflower should crunch, and there was a caesar salad that kept me up last night. a caesar salad! 10 out of 10, this trip was a solid success and i am filled to the brim with inspiration. also the panel was a blast!! and an added bonus: philadelphia is no longer ex-boyfriend land (see: spaghetti and my boyfriend’s meatless balls in molly on the range), now it is food inspiration land. 

here were the top o-face worthy things:

the insanely rich chocolate tahini shake at goldie (and their perfectly crispy fries, dipped in the shake, duh)

the schug-a-rita at rooster soup, cilantro-y and spicy!

the smoked matzo ball soup (#teamsinker) with a fried boloney sandwich at rooster soup

the cookies n cream donut, followed closely by the honey donut at federal donuts, mmmm, hot and melty 

the fried chicken sandwich at federal donuts, the bottom bun was like lined with pickles, it was the pickley crunch that every fried chicken sandwich needs

the za’atar fried chicken at federal donuts, with a crispy salty shell that wouldn't quit

the ceasar salad with fried rye bread pudding croutons (!!!!) at abe fisher

actually, all of the things that came on fried rye bread at abe fisher

the lamb and persian wedding rice at zahav, i don't normally love lamb but this lamb, i loved

the very hazelnut-y carrot basbousa at zahav

the hummus at zahav and dizengoff (especially the zahav one bc it came with laffaaaaa)

my only regret was that i didn't have time to cook in my really pretty jersey ice cream co hotel kitchen. instead i just looked at it and instagrammed it. (shout out to the lokal hotel for an awesome stay!!!) 

i can't wait for my next trip to philly. whenever that will be. first i should eat some kale.

for my second flower practice session, i made cookies because i was inspired by this instagram post and also i thought that maybe with cookies, i could forgo the parchment paper step altogether. but it was actually kind of hard to pipe directly onto the cookies so i went back to the method of piping on parchment squares, freezing them, and then peeling off the flowers and plopping them onto the cookies. it didn’t add that much time, maybe only one or two episodes of the mindy project. and eggboy was planting late that day so it all went by really quickly. 

i used italian buttercream this time. my lack of patience got the best of me and i ruined it because i added the butter while the egg white mixture was still hot. so it looked like poop for a while, but then i poured in a couple of tablespoons of cold heavy cream and beat the crap out of it and it came back to life!! that was very satisfying. 

i liked how it tasted. it’s a lot lighter and probably more suitable for eating a big blob of frosting in the shape of a rose than american buttercream is. but my hands were so used to a stiff heavy american buttercream that piping with italian felt almost too delicate. it was like switching to the lowest gear on a bike. but the lightness made the petals and succulent nubbins stand up more easily on their own, so i feel like once i get it down i’ll be able to do more with it. the biggest downside is how long it takes to make. if i’m going to be making a million zillion flowers for eggsister wedding i’m going to need a hot tub of buttercream, but i still have some time to experiment with more recipes.

my favorite part about this cookie situation is the cookie part! i was obsessed with cookies n bloom cookies when i was little, they were so thick and almondy and cakey, and this recipe yields cookies that come super close to those! the princess emulsion gives them that little boost of nostalgic bakeriness but you can sub it for more vanilla if you don’t have princess emulsion. and as far as the actual piping of the roses and succulents, i still don't feel qualified to tell you how to do it or make a video about it (honestly i don't think that i ever will haha, look at my roses, they are so *rustic*) so i will send you back to my post about my last practice session that has a bunch of links to how-to videos! 

rose rose cookies

makes about 20 cookies

ingredients

4 c (480g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1 c (226g) unsalted butter, softened

2/3 c (137g) sugar

2/3 c (80g) powdered sugar

zest from 1/2 of a lemon

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp princess emulsion (or another tsp vanilla)

3/4 tsp almond extract

 

for the frosting:

this recipe, plus a few drops of rosewater and food coloring

clues

in a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.

in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and the sugars until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

add in the lemon zest and mix to combine. add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each, and then add the extracts.

add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, one-third at a time, mixing until just blended.

turn the dough out onto the counter and divide into two large discs. wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour, or up to two days.

when ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375ºf. line two baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

working with one dough disc at a time, roll it out on a lightly floured surface to 1/2” thick. use a cookie cutter to make 2 1/2” circles and then transfer circles to a baking sheet, 1" apart. re-roll scraps and cut out more circles.

bake until they're barely starting to brown on bottom, begin checking for doneness at 12 minutes. let cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

make your frosting and then decorate as desired (see notes above)! 

-yeh!

ramp malawach

in ,

This weekend totally nailed it. Nothing was too strongly out of the ordinary (except that brunch club member emeritus Abby came back to town for a visit with her new special man friend and it was sooo great and, ugh, we’ve gotta find a way to convince them to move back to grand forks you guys), I just did some simple errands, cooked fun things for family and friends, and engaged in my favorite saturday mid-morning ritual of going to the gym and then getting a turkey tom with onions on 7-grain at jimmy john's. “gym and jimmy john's” is its official name and it’s basically a way for the chill of pizza friday to take a victory lap. I don’t have to make any real decisions, I can sleep in and then cruise around town, ideally with a met opera broadcast la-la-la-ing over the radio, and then have a big mayo-y sandwich at the end. 

This particular saturday morning was extra good because in my first internet check of the day I came across this video of my friend matt playing the mozart sinfonia concertante with the minnesota orchestra. It is pure joy!! Is his mozart face not the best?? (The eyebrows! The delight!) So that set the jolliest, most civilized tone for the weekend and inspired me to listen to more mozart and then some mahler during my jimmy john's eating and new cookbook studying. At 5 o’clock, A Prairie Home Companion came on and I watched the video broadcast as I chopped cabbage. I really really love Chris Thile’s PHC. Even though he’s not from the Midwest, I’ve always associated his voice and music with the midwest since I listened to so much Nickel Creek on road trips to Michigan growing up, so I’m extremely happy and proud that we’ve adopted him. Being able to hear him play new songs live over the radio on the regular is such a gift. 

Yesterday I harvested our first bit of rhubarb!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I used it to make a sauce for mother’s day blintzes. We had a nice big mother’s day brunch of blintz soufflé, zucchini quiche, challah, butter with chives from the garden, this rose rose cake which I finally defrosted, and some salady things. The quiche and blintz soufflé were made from recipes that I was testing for Leah’s forthcoming book and they were delicious, I can’t wait for her next book. 

Today I’m flying to Philadelphia for this panel tomorrow! (It is sold out but it will be live-streamed on facebook I think.) I am also planning to eat at all of Mike Solomonov’s restaurants in a pokémon-style gotta-catch-em-all early birthday present to myself. I am so excited. Wish me and my waistline luck. 

Here is a recipe that helped me get through all of the many bunches of ramps that eggboy bought the other day! At first I was going to make scallion pancakes with ramp greens instead of scallions but then I dug a bit further and learned that making malawach (a flaky yemeni flatbread) is a very similar process except that it uses butter instead of sesame oil and the dough gets stretched way thinner so you get more flakiness. I was in a buttery flaky mood, and I had just almost died over the amazing malawach at kismet in l.a., so I went with ramp malawach. 

Malawach is like a rustic flat hot croissant that’s way easier to make than a croissant. There truly is life before your first malawach and life after because there is no more perfect bite than a piece of malawach, hot out of the pan, topped with grated tomato, a plop of labneh, and a splatter of spicy zhoug. Grated tomato is traditional with yemeni buttery breads and it delivers just the right amount of freshness to balance everything out.

The dough here is pretty much the same as the scallion pancake dough in my book, but I read here that the kismet ladies use some pastry flour in theirs so I tried that and loved the extra bit of lightness that it added. The process of shaping malawach and getting the dough to be paper thin requires massaging it with a shit ton of butter. It's a lil messy, but it doesn't need to be perfect, and bonus: you'll moisturize your hands and butcher block countertops (if that's what you're using) in the process. 

Obviously if you're not up to your eyeballs in ramps, or maybe you're sick of them by now, you can use scallion greens, chives, or nix the idea of green things altogether. I threw the white parts of the ramps into some zhoug in the place of garlic which was a thing I'd do again. 

Happy Malawach-ing!!! 

ramp malawach

makes 6

ingredients

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

3/4 c pastry flour

2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 c water

3/4 c butter, very soft

10 ramps (green parts, finely chopped, add the white parts to zhoug or reserve for another use)

 

for serving

zhoug

labneh

2 large tomatoes, grated

3 or 4 seven-minute eggs

clues

in a large bowl, combine the flour, pastry flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. create a well in the center and add the water. mix the dough until you have a shaggy dough. 

turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead dough for 5-7 minutes, adding additional flour as needed, until smooth.

transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and rest for 30 minutes.

turn the dough out onto a work surface and divide into 6 balls. Keep them covered with plastic wrap when you're not working with them. Using your hands, spread 1 tablespoon butter on a large work surface, top one of the balls of dough with another tablespoon butter and pat the dough and butter out into a flat circle.

Using a flat hand, gently massage it in circular motions (kind of as if you’re washing a window) to flatten it out into a very large translucent circle. It’s ok if it’s tears, it doesn’t need to be perfect, just try to get it as thin as possible! 

Top with a sprinkling of the ramp greens and then roll it up into one long, skinny log. roll the log into a coil and set it on a plate. repeat with the remaining dough.

roll out the coils into 7" circles by placing them between two pieces of wax paper and rolling with a rolling pin. the dough will probably want to stick to the wax paper, but it's ok if it tears while you're peeling it off. (alternatively, you can stick the coils in the fridge for about 30 minutes, which will make them slightly easier to handle.)

Heat a skillet over medium heat and cook fora few minutes on both sides until golden brown. 

Serve hot with zhoug, labneh, grated tomatoes, and 7-minute eggs. Enjoy!

-yeh!

saffron, cardamom, and rosewater tiramisu

in ,

spring planting has officially begun and i have had the most splendid week, baking up a storm, using up all of the flour to make room in the world for eggboy to grow more wheat. or something like that! in the past few days i made my first malawach, my first kuku, and also did some serious carrot cake experiments and ramp pickling because eggboy brought home 16 bunches the other day. i had the mindy project on in the background this whole week and now i don’t think i’ll be able to watch it without craving carrot cake and ramps in the same way that i feel the need to make donuts every time i watch bojack. 

the town co-op went out of business over the weekend. it makes me blue every time i think of it but i can’t say we didn’t see it coming. bagel sunday was part of a last effort to try and save it, and while it was fun and successful, it wasn’t enough to save the co-op. i’m hoping to find another space for bagel sunday but for now eggboy and i are helping the board and members figure out what comes next for the organization. the good thing is that just because the grocery store is out of business, it doesn’t mean that the membership has disbanded, so the community is still there and a lot of the members are hoping to create a new space. i’d be so happy if i could still get their #2 sandwich (hold the sprouts) and just generally have a cute downtown hang with cool friendly people. 

also until yesterday i was a little nervous about how i was going to get my ramp fix next spring since the co-op wouldn’t be there to order them for me, but then eggboy got a cryptic text from sheila and dave with a picture of freshly picked ramps. we think it’s from somewhere in north dakota, but eggboy’s too afraid to ask out of fear that they won’t want to disclose their secret stash (*cue the eye roll of the week*).

so anyway i don’t have a good segue to this but i have to tell you about this tiramisu. by definition, i’m not a tiramisu person as i have a very strict liquid intake schedule that goes as follows:

morning-12pm: coffee, as much as i can drink within that time period

12pm-5pm: green tea, 1-2 mugs

5pm-bedtime: booze, these days it’s 1/2 a glass of wine sunday-thursday, and then friday and saturday double that, maybe

because tiramisu is drenched in coffee, and because i’ve just never really been moved by the flavors of it, i have never ever ordered it at a restaurant. it feels outdated and not worth the calories. and let’s go broader here: while i’m always curious about restaurant dessert menus in the name of research and inspiration, it’s extraordinarily rare that i get to dessert and think aww shucks, i should have eaten less schnitzel so that i could have saved room for this quenelle of gelato with crunchies on it. while i prefer making sweet things, i definitely prefer eating savory things. 

all of this was shattered when we were at nosh berlin in march and ate this here rosewater cardamom tiramisu at a pop-up shabbat meal cooked by sophie and xenia von oswald. sophie and xenia are german iranian sisters who grew up in australia and now live in berlin, and they made a persian feast that was one course after another of food i want to eat again and again and again. it included a very saffrony tahdig and dreamy short ribs and a perfectly acidic tabbouleh. oh i just couldn’t stop with that tahdig, it was insane. and then when this tiramisu came i thought, oh i’ll just have a bite of eggboy’s because i was so full on short ribs and tahdig, but that was the wrong thing to think because after one bite i just wanted to cry about how good it was. it was all of my favorite flavors, wrapped up into a pile of velvety fluff. light but luxurious, it was perfect after such a huge great meal. actually it was perfect, period. suddenly it was the tiramisu that made me love tiramisu and the inspiration alone was my favorite souvenir from that week in berlin.

luckily i didn’t have to blindly claw my away around my first tiramisu when i got home because sophie and xenia shared their recipe with me, yay!!! oh it’s so good and not too hard to make. and it's a perfect dessert if you need something to prepare in advance. here are some notes from my inaugural tiramisu experience:

-i was not successful the first time around because i tried pasteurizing macaroni’s eggs since sometimes they’re often a bit dirty and i get so paranoid that if the outside of the shell accidentally touches the insides when i’m cracking it that i’ll get salmonella. it turns out i suck at pasteurizing. so after i learned that i went out and bought pasteurized eggs since this recipe has raw egg. 

-i made homemade ladyfingers for this! i used the recipe from luisa’s book and ended up using the whole batch of about 60 in this since they were much smaller than the store-bought kind.

-i didn’t have vanilla liqueur so i subbed vanilla extract and used 1 tb in the tea and 2 tsp in the yolk mixture.

-since my rosewater is super strong, i started by just adding a teaspoon and then added more bit by bit.

thank you sophia and xenia for sharing this recipe!!! berlin friends, go check out their events!

saffron, cardamom, and rosewater tiramisu

serves 6

By Sophie & Xenia von Oswald AKA Rocket & Basil

ingredients

300 ml VERY STRONG Earl Grey Tea

2 tb simple syrup

4 tb vanilla liqueur

6 large eggs 

150 g caster sugar

500 g mascarpone

A healthy pinch of Saffron 

1 tb rose water

10-15 ladyfingers

1 tsp ground cardamom

rose petals and pistachios, for serving 

clues

First, make the tea, allowing it to brew for at least 15-20 Minutes [using about 4 tea bags]. You want it to have a really strong earl grey flavor, almost to the point of being bitter. Sweeten with simple sugar syrup and 2 tablespoons of the vanilla liqueur, then allow to cool.

Make saffron essence: Use a mortar and pestle to grind the saffron (saving a few strands) into a super fine powder (adding a pinch of sugar to the mortar will help this along), pour over 50 ml of just boiled water and cool.

Separate the eggs, then whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until the eggs are frothy, creamy, doubled in size and all the sugar has dissolved.

With the mixer on slow speed, add the mascarpone and beat until smooth, then add 3-4 teaspoons of saffron essence (the color of the mixture should be a deep yellow), the remaining liqueur, rose water and saffron strands.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them gently into the egg yolk mixture, taking care to knock out as little air as possible. Check the mixture for sweetness and add more liqueur/saffron essence if needed.

To assemble: Dip the ladyfingers quickly in the cooled down tea, top with the cream and some ground cardamom. Repeat with a second layer, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours. We prefer to do overnight! Decorate with chopped pistachios and rose petals before serving! AND ENJOY!!

-yeh!

rose rose cake

in , ,

We had our first Bagel Sunday at Amazing Grains this weekend!! Robert, one of Grand Forks’ resident bagel experts came in and we spent the weekend making plain and onion bagels. He hadn’t made bagels in 19 years and I hadn’t made bagels in, well, probably 19 years too, so we hacked our way through our first couple of batches and they miraculously turned out so deliciously dense and doughy, just the way I like them. I was so pleased! We used Robert’s recipe that he used when he owned his bagel shop in boise. It doesn’t have barley malt in it, just a nice amount of brown sugar, and we made them so pleasantly plump. (I have never been bound to my bagels having a well-defined hole, is that ok??) We offered three basic options: salmon and cream cheese, egg and cheese, and just cream cheese, and sold out in an hour and a half!! It was so much fun. Sundays are my new favorite. In future weeks I’d like to do pizza bagels, fancy avocado toast bagels, maybe even bagel dogs. But first I really need to improve my bagel rolling skills because mine came out bumpy and lumpy. 

After Bagel Sunday we got a snowstorm and it was so cozy inside. I made a big sunday supper of tahdig (my first try!) and the fava bean meatball dish from Jerusalem, which I loved except for the unshelled fava bean part. I still have a bunch of favas left though so I think I’ll put some on a pizza and then make ful with the rest.

When I wasn't shelling fava beans or rolling bagels these past few days, I was practicing my buttercream roses. Part of me thinks I should just stick to using marzipan since my clumsy hands can handle that so much more easily than buttercream, but I’ve found that once I kind of get into the rhythm of things, I can churn out buttercream roses way faster than marzipan roses (even if they are a little rustic... but that’s why I’m practicing).

And I’ll indeed need to up my speed because I am planning to cover enough cake for 400 million people with buttercream roses for Eggsister’s wedding in July. That's the whole reason I'm on this buttercream rose kick! The idea came after she decided that all of the bridesmaids and eggboy (the man of honor) would wear something flowery. I thought that with a floral theme, a whole table of floral-inspired cakes would be appropriate. So over the next few months I plan to: figure out recipes for a hibiscus cake, an orange blossom carrot cake, a chocolate lavender cake, and any other flowery cakes that eggsister and eggsisterfiancé want (got any suggestions??), and then also improve my buttercream roses and succulents. I tackled this vanilla rose cake first since rose is a flavor I’ve been comfortable with ever since I realized that you only need the teensiest bit of rosewater to have a great effect. 

I watched a bazillion video tutorials on how to make buttercream roses and also looked at instagram accounts like brooklyn floral delight. I figured out a few things:

-American buttercream probably isn’t the best for this since it can get a little bit flimsy. I’m including the recipe for it here since it’s my go-to buttercream when frosting cakes and if you’re just doing a basic frosting job for this, it does the trick, is easy to make, and is tasty. I haven’t yet experimented much with Italian buttercream but that’s what I’m going to use for my next rose practice session.

-It’s important to get one of these thingies and a few of the proper tips (and I’ve been using couplers so that I can switch the tips easily between colors). 

-I found that it was easiest to pipe the roses onto a little square of parchment (stick the parchment onto the metal thingy with a blob of frosting) and then transfer the parchment with the rose on it to a sheet pan. Freeze or refrigerate the sheet pan until the roses are firmed up and then pick em up with your hands, peel off the parchment, and just plop them right down onto your cake. From there you can fill in any empty spaces or clean up the edges with any reserved frosting in your piping bags. One pan of roses made enough to fill up this whole sheet cake, so I’m thinking that I’ll want to pipe about six full pans of roses in preparation for eggsisterwedding. I’m hoping that by that time I’ll be able to bang em all out the day before and then hold on to the extra frosting that’s still in the piping bags at room temperature so that I can fill in any holes the morning of the wedding. I’ll plan to bake the cakes three days out, frost them with a base layer two days out, do the roses the day before, assemble the morning of, and then party my tuchus off. 

-Best not to watch Bojack or anything else that is funny while you’re piping because laughing leads to ruffled petals. Which is fine if you’re going for that look, but I have to get a handle on clean petals before I can start taking artistic liberties.

Alright, gotta go make spätzle! My second rose practice session is in a few weeks, I’ll report back.

Here's a rosewater cake that's got the body of a vanilla cardamom cake but the sparkle and shimmer that only a drop of rosewater can add:

rose rose cake

makes one 9 x 13" cake

ingredients

for the cake:

1 3/4 c sugar

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

2 large eggs

1 c buttermilk

1/2 c flavorless oil, like canola

1 tb vanilla extract

1/2 tsp rosewater

1/2 tsp almond extract

3/4 c water

 

for the frosting:

1 c unsalted butter, softened

3 c powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

a couple of drops of rosewater

a pinch of kosher salt

2 tb heavy cream

clues

for the cake:

preheat the oven to 350ºf. line a 9 x 13" baking pan with parchment and set aside.

in a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cardamom. in a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla extract, rosewater, almond extract, and water.

whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. pour batter into the prepared cake pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at 35 minutes.

let the cake cool in the pan before frosting.

for the frosting:

in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add the butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, rosewater, and salt and mix until combined. mix in the heavy cream.

frost as desired! you certainly don't need to cover the whole darn thing in roses, but if you'd like to, see notes above and then here are a few reference videos: 

video 1

video 2

video 3

video 4

-yeh!