blog — molly yeh

holiday

we're married!!!!!!!!!!

the big fat snow flakes that fell from the sky,

the cake with our smiling eggs, a marzipan heart, halva, and gold,

my new family, 

my old one,

the lace from stoopie's wedding dress tied to my bouquet with a bracelet from mia,

a crab brooch from china and a cuff from mum's mum as my something blue,

the sound of the fugue as we walked down the aisle through a sea of love and rosemary, to eggboy with his egg tears. 

john's perfect speech, the cell phone soundtrack to our vows, the smooches, the sprinkles, the shawls that kept my bridesmaids warm,

eating all of the challah and prosciutto for the buffer for all of the aquavit that fueled the chorus line, the conga line, the hora, and cyndi lauper sing along,

the perfectly timed dinner bell, the late night grilled cheese covered in tons and tons of ketchup, the later night papa john's soaked in garlic butter, the smiley faces and the dancing, the perfect cake, the perfect pies, the perfect soup, the big big hugs,

and my husband.

hehehe.

my husband.

-yeh! (hagen!)


thank you to our amazing photographers, chantell and brett for these photos!!! more photos to come :)

mexican hot chocolate

i baked our wedding cake today and it was a disaster. it was funfetti cake, the recipe i spent three entire months of this year on! wtf!!!!!!!!!! it could have been worse. it tastes how i want it to taste and with a fat coat of frosting and our little wooden eggs on top, its face will be saved. but basically i tried to get away with using the wrong size cake pans and i'm pretty sure the oven was too hot, so the middles really sank and the edges are crumbly. maybe this cake will be a metaphor for the life that eggboy and i will lead: a little shaggy and rustic on the outside, but happy and colorful on the inside. eh? ehh? i don't know.

 luckily when i was searching for a recipe that would use up all of my leftover yolks (since the sprinkle cake uses a bunch of whites) i discovered that crack pie calls for the exact amount! so in addition to the zillions of cakes that i have already made and the zillions of pies that mum and i are about to make, we will now have crack pie bars on the dessert table. the newly found upper midwesterner in me can now sleep well at night knowing that we will have bars.  

phew.

here's another hot chocolate recipe! consider this hot chocolate week. this is actually the hot chocolate recipe from hemsley + hemsley that inspired my tahini hot chocolate from a few days ago. the first time i made this was about a month ago, when the first snow flurries came down. eggboy requested hot chocolate and we listened to christmas chipmunks on his record player and it was so gleeful, and it only added to the glee that i felt like i had just discovered a hot chocolate secret in this recipe. it's just so rich and creamy without being too sweet. 

the recipe comes from the hemsleys' new book, the art of eating well full. it's a really gorgeous and colorful book and it makes me want to eat all healthy and stuff. i'm even excited about their salads! there's a bone marrow and watercress salad and a cabbage, bacon, and apple salad... yum. but back to the sweet stuff, here's some hot chocolate! 


mexican hot chocolate

slightly adapted from hemsley + hemsley's the art of eating well

makes 2-4 servings

ingredients

1 can coconut milk or 1 1/2 c almond milk

3 tb cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 tb maple syrup, to taste, or raw honey

a pinch of sea salt

1 tsp or more of ground cinnamon

a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper

clues

for hot chocolate: whisk everything together (using coconut milk) and warm gently in a saucepan before serving.

for cold chocolate: whisk everything together (using almond milk and raw honey) and serve.


-yeh!

thank you so much to urban outfitters for sponsoring this post! all opinions are my own. you can find hemsley + hemsley's book and those nifty antler mugs at urban outfitters!

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... 


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 sproutshawaii'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.


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.


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!