this morning

this morning is about a few things:

1. live streaming the ice dancers in a really low quality image. but one choppy besti squat is better than no besti squat, amiright?

2. practicing my heart shaped eggies! with a well-greased heart cookie cutter and a well-greased pan and an extra firm egg, i am officially unstoppable.

3.  decorating a birthday cake for the egg grandma!

4. prepping for a dinner for 40 on monday that i am cooking. ermygosh. i tested jerusalem's recipe for tomato sourdough soup last night and it was a real winner.

5. shopping for hiking shoes so that next week, when the entire egg family whoops my butt in hiking, i can at least look like i was prepared.

-yeh!

valentine cake

do you ever taste a cake and think "i was this cake in a past life" but then realize you're probably just recalling an early memory of eating the same cake?

(i still think i was a cake in a past life.)

there's a newspaper clipping with a recipe for an italian almond cake in a binder of family recipes that mum made for me. when i was a very very wee one, my family ate this cake every valentine's day. mum would beat up all of its six egg whites while stoop would open up the can of almond paste and eat half of it. (maybe, if i was lucky, she'd give me some.) the spongy almond cake and its pretty pink whipped cream meant that valentine's day was officially in full swing. that and power rangers valentines for all of my friendsies.

for a few years we fell out of tradition and stopped making it. idk, i had better things to do in high school than eat valentine's cake with my family, for example: receive teddy bears from golfer boyfriends... but once i moved to new york, i began making it religiously every valentine's day.

you can see last year's, 2012's, 2011's, and the true embarrassment that is 2010's. 

for one second i thought about doing something funky this year in the form of an herby infused whipped cream or dying it red with pomegranate juice, but no, the valentine's cake is sacred and must not be altered. every valentine's cake requires a few things:

1. a full on raid of the candy aisle for all of the valentine's shit that you may or may not use as a decoration

2. chocolate hearts

3. marzipan hearts (these aren't *necessary* but... you really should...)

4. lots of little almond paste nibbles while making the batter

5. it may not be made at any other time of year

for the first time this year, i used almond paste that i made from scratch. it was so great! here is the recipe that i used. i omitted the kirsch and butter and i also halved it, resulting in the perfect amount--enough for the cake and a few nibbles along the way.

oh! and you may wonder what the best way to eat this cake is:

(hello, eggboy's farmer hand!)

---

italian almond cake

10-12 servings

ingredients

cake:

1/2 c flour*

1 tsp baking powder

8 oz almond paste

6 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

pinch of salt

1/2 c sugar

*i have made this before using almond meal instead of flour for a gluten free option. its shape didn't hold very well, but it tasted just as great.

topping:

1 1/2 c whipping cream

1/2 c powdered sugar

1 tsp almond extract + a few drops of red food coloring or 2 tb creme de almond liqueur

chocolate hearts, marzipan hearts, any other decorations you'd like

clues

preheat oven to 350ºf. prepare two 8- or 9-inch or three 6-inch cake pans and set aside.

combine flour and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside.

beat almond paste and egg yolks until well blended, mix in vanilla and almond extract, and set aside.

in a separate large bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until soft peaks form. beat in sugar one tablespoon at a time and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

gently fold the whites into the yolk mixture and then gradually fold in the flour mixture. pour batter into prepared pans and bake for about 30 minutes, until a tooth pick comes out clean.

let cool.

for the topping, whip up the whipping cream and add the almond extract and red food coloring or the liqueur.

decorate to your heart's desire (heh, no pun...) and enjoy!!!! 

---

-yeh!

FARMHOUSE FACELIFT: KITCHEN, PART ONE

hey, how many music school graduates does it take to renovate a kitchen?

trick question: omg we have no idea what we're doing.

well, ok, i'm not giving eggboy enough credit. his rugged manly farmerness has come out a bit and he knows some things, but mainly he knows enough to know that we don't know what we're doing.

that is why most of these pictures are of paint chips!

so far we have done these things:

1. painted a couple of walls in the colors crumb cookie and sage

2. removed the hanging cabinets

3. painted some of the remaining cabinets

4. ordered wallpaper samples and decided not to get the one with the bunnies

5. decided that we want butcher block countertops and that we'll likely order those from ikea

our goal is to have everything done by the time the chickens arrive (may) and, nope, that's probably not going to happen. but it's ok! mostly i am just excited to move down the road to a house with a chicken coup and to have an address without an apartment number after it!!!

-yeh!

OTTOLENGHI'S PERFECT MERINGUES, WITH MARZIPAN AND TOASTED ALMONDS

praise cheeses, january is dunzo.

january culminated in a tantrum of the dirty dishes kind. (you know, the kind where you yell no i am not freaking out in such a way that makes it obvious to everybody that, yes, you are freaking out.) i suppose that is the nature of living without roommates to blame your dishes on. my gosh, i hate dishes so much. 

but i am just so glad that the monday of months is over and we can now really get into valentine's day, spring break planning, and the idea that maybe mayyyybe it will start to warm up kind of soon-ish-ish. ish...

we took our christmas tree down.

there's a pile of string lights sitting on the floor in the corner of our living room, still connected to the outlet. it's as if our tree just vanished, alex mac style, and left all of its lights. it's running around naked somewhere. at least the corner is still lit up and happy.

i am celebrating february with meringues!

if i had one dollar for every time that i tried to make meringues and failed, i would be able to fly you and your entire family to sochi to watch jason brown and his ponytail lose himself on the ice. i have tried every recipe, i have winced at recipes that tell you to bake them overnight, i have watched too many egg whites deflate. oy. the meringue.

when i was in london two summers ago, all of the bakeries had piles of massive meringues, flaunting themselves in the window. so fluffy, so jolly. i figured they couldn't be that difficult to make, but at their big softball size, my otherwise go-to recipe cracked and was just too brittle. then recently, at the beginning of my ottolenghi obsession, i found his recipe, which uses a method i've never done before. it calls for heating the sugar before adding it to the egg whites and then beating the whites for way longer than i normally do. the result is a super sturdy mixture that will allow you to make a bigass meringue cookie that'll bake in two hours and leave you with a yummy delight that is crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

fact: this is my favorite meringue recipe.

ottolenghi's meringues 

here, i have halved ottolenghi's recipe (the original calls for 10 (!!) egg whites) and made a few additions to make them almondy in all sorts of ways. this size recipe makes about 8-12 large meringues.

ingredients

1 1/2 c white sugar

5 egg whites

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 c crushed toasted almonds

cute marzipan hearts

a few pinches of kosher salt, optional

clues

preheat oven to 400ºf. distribute the sugar in an even layer onto a baking sheet and bake for 8 minutes. while sugar is baking, crack your egg whites into a stand mixer. i like doing this one egg at a time in a separate small bowl, in case i break a yolk. even the tiniest bit of yolk will prevent whites from getting fluffy.

once the sugar has been in the oven for 7 minutes, begin beating the whites on high. after a minute they should be foamy. with the mixer still running, gradually sprinkle in the warm sugar. once all of it has been added, add the extracts. beat on high for 10 minutes, until the meringue is cold.

reduce the oven to 225ºf.

prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment. place the toasted almonds on a plate. using a large ice cream scoop or two large spoons, scoop up a big dollop of meringue and place it on the plate of almonds so that they stick to the bottom. use a spatula to carefully transfer it to the baking sheet. decorate with marzipan and, if desired, sprinkle on a tiny bit of salt.

bake for two hours, until the outsides are crunchy and the insides are still slightly soft.

enjoy!

and then check out this cool chart with ways to use up egg yolks.

the meringues will keep for a few days at room temperature.

-yeh!