blog — molly yeh

nuts

pistachio milk + some other things i'm loving these days

in

hello from austin where i am in bed at 8 and living my best life, eating a room service quesadilla, extra guacamole, extra unidentified white sauce, and hoping with all of my might that pitch perfect 2 is on demand. i really really really wanted to go out tonight and eat at all of the restaurants in jeanine's austin guide but i am completely pooped after this weekend because i have been in chicago, busy celebrating (wait for it) mum's 60th birthday!!!!!!!! it was so fun. relatives came from out of town, stoopie cooked a middle eastern feast, i made a chocolate mint cake, and we showered my mama with love!! i miss everyone so much already.

now i gotta get *in the zone* for a fun video i'm shooting with whole foods tomorrow! but first, let's talk about some stuff i'm loving these days:

-the bulk pistachio bags. making things with pistachios is fun, but making things with pistachios without ever feeling like you're going to run out is infinitely more fun. i've been working on a pistachio cake for my book, and i just learned how to milk a nut! it is so great, i can't believe i went this long without milking nuts before. (see below for gena hemshaw's nut milk recipe!)

-homemade halva. i don't think i ever really told you about my homemade halva struggle, but there was a very long and hard one and a lot of tahini was lost but finally the new york times posted michael solomonov's recipe and it worked and i feel like i can accomplish anything now. even a juice cleanse. no, just kidding, not a juice cleanse.

-this lauren winter jumpsuit. my friend lydia introduced me to lauren's work and i am so obsessed with this jumpsuit for one main reason: it is a beautiful elegant dinner-appropriate garment that completely disguises the fact that you feel like you are in your comfiest pajammies. i love it so very much.

-pilates. ever since rebecca led a mat class for alana and me last month, i have been hooked. it makes me feel sooo good and tall. i've been trying out a bunch of different youtube videos but have yet to find a clear winner... do you have a favorite online pilates video??

-sitting at the town coffee shop. ok! i've been leaving the house more and more these days. about once a week, i go to the town coffee shop, sit on my computer, and type up recipes/eavesdrop on conversations about the town gossip and what not. it makes me feel so alive. and then after that i sometimes stop at the co-op to look at the farro and pet the squash.

-fresh's cocoa body exfoliator. it makes me feel like a tootsie roll from head to toe.

-this is ground's mod laptop case. until I found this is ground, I thought that my days of organizing school supplies with such systematic glee was just a thing of my Hello Kitty pencil case past. but now! i get so much more pleasure out of bringing my work on the road, to the coffee shop, to my couch, etc. there is a designated spot for everything i need and it looks so darn cool.

-how to get away with murder. it's borderline scary for my taste, so i can't watch it without eggboy but we love it.

-quin candy. i had my first taste in portland the other day and since then i have not been able to stop. i feel like a monster when i eat it because no matter how forcefully i tell myself that this is the last piece, it is never the last piece. i've had their pretzel chews, mint chews, and fruity chews and they are all the best.

-my chickens. duh. we're ready for them to start laying eggs though. come on, macaroni!!!!! hurry up!!!!! 

here is the recipe that inspired me to try making nut milk! i've seen recipes for it many times before, but after looking through gena hemshaw/food52's new vegan cookbook (and picking up a nice big bag of pistachios), i finally got to work! it is such a tasty treat. it's like a milkshake but better because you can have more of it without feeling like butt afterwards. i like the weird sensation of drinking unstrained nut milk, it almost feels like you're drinking milk after having dunked a bunch of oreos in it and the oreo crumbs are at the bottom. but if you'd like to strain it, go ahead! i also like adding a little splash of almond extract. thank you, gena, for inspiring me to try this new tasty thing!!!! 

pistachio milk

makes 3 cups

ingredients

1 c pistachios, soaked in water for 8-12 hours and drained

4 cups water

1/4 c maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

clues

put all the ingredients in a blender and blend on high speed until completely smooth, 2-3 minutes.

cover the mouth of a large container with two layers of cheesecloth, leaving a well in the cheesecloth (a new paint strainer bag or a nut milk bag will also work well). Secure with a rubber band, then pour in the blended mixture. you might need to do this in batches, gently pushing some of the pulp to the side or spooning it out and discarding it. after pouring all of the mixture in, let it sit for about 10 minutes. loosen the cheesecloth from the rim of the container and gently squeeze to extract as much liquid as possible.

stored in an airtight container in the fridge, it will keep for 2-3 days. shake well before using.

-yeh!

peanut butter snack cake

in

i know that our honeymoon was 5ever ago, but i still think about all of our little afternoon cake dates that we had in austria. nearly every afternoon on our trip, eggboy and i would sheepishly poke ourselves into an old cafe and assess the cake situation before looking for a place to sit. we were always just a wee bit tense until we actually had cake and coffee in front of us because we could never be sure if we were supposed to order at a counter, at our table, or if we should wait for a tray of cake to come parading around and then wave it down. it was stressful and my limited german wasn't such that i could confidently ask about a parading tray of cake, but boy is austrian café culture great.

what fascinated me most was how all of the cafés had such similar lineups of cake, and that they were all decorated the same way. like, all of the esterházy tortes in vienna had the same little squigglies and all of the punch cakes were the exact same shade of pink. it wasn't like some punk was sitting in the kitchen, deciding on a whim to cover an entire cake in sprinkles or make a naked cake and instagram it with a nudy joke. it was way more civilized than that. there were no sprinkles. 

after a week of afternoon cake dates, i learned that splitting a slice was simply not the way to go. eggboy eats cake too fast. he'd gobble up as much as he could without coming up for a breath and then open up his big paper map and linger over our path while i carefully ate each bite. i'd stare at the chandeliers, and get to know the texture and flavor of that cake. what made this esterházy torte different from the last esterházy torte? this glaze is like pudding skin... and before i could really get to know a new cake, it would be gone. so we started ordering two slices so that his rambunctious eating habits wouldn't leave me with no cake. 

we'd talk about who had probably eaten cake in that exact room and various cake-related history factoids. what kind of cake did mozart eat?? what do you think is the history behind the frosting squigglies? can you imagine what life was like for franz sacher???

it was perfect.

i miss it.

now that spring planting has started, i'll have to deliver some cake and a stanley thermos of coffee out to a tractor to relive our afternoon cake dates. 

but a fancy frosted cake with hundreds of years of history isn't so appropriate for a tractor cake date, i don't think. so here's my homey farmy translation of afternoon austrian cake: a finger food cake that isn't frosted or decorated, one that can be whipped up in a snap and enjoyed in such a rustic place as a tractor cab.

i know, unfrosted cake is a new concept for me. but once i tweaked this recipe just so, i decided that its moist sweet perfectly peanutty easy-to-make and easier-to-eat qualities left no need whatsoever for marzipan animals. so there you have it. no more excuses, go make cake. 

peanut butter snack cake

makes one 8-inch square cake

ingredients

1 c sugar

1 c all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp kosher salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

 3/4 tsp baking soda

1 large egg

1/2 c buttermilk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 c flavorless oil, like canola

6 tb water

1/2 c creamy peanut butter*

 

for serving:

powdered sugar

*the peanut butter that i use for this recipe only contains peanuts and salt, like smucker's natural and target's market pantry all natural.

 

clues

preheat oven to 350.

grease an 8-inch square pan (or something similar, like the pan that i used), line the bottom with parchment paper, and set it aside.

in a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients. in a medium bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients. whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and then pour into cake pan and bake until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at 25 minutes.

let cool for about 10 minutes in the pan and then turn onto a lightly greased cooling wrack. 

dust with powdered sugar, cut into squares, and serve! store in an airtight container for up to a few days, or freeze for up to a few weeks.

 

-yeh!

this post features goodies from zola registry! eggboy and i used zola for our wedding registry and we had the jolliest time picking out homeware from their pretty collection as well as being able to add whatever else we wanted from around the internet. (how else can you have a smeg fridge and silkie chickens on your registry?) if you are engaged and looking to register, check out zola and get $25 added to your account with this link! also be sure to check out my little baking-centric tastemaker collection. thanks so much for sponsoring this post, zola!!! 

here are the pieces that are pictured: red rimmed plates // blue rimmed plates // red rimmed mugs // gold flatware // blue rimmed baking dish // kitchen-aid // linen napkins // square cake stand

chocolate hazelnut cake with vanilla hazelnut buttercream

in ,

sometimes living on a farm feels like living in one great big jungle gym. there's tons of exploring to be done, secret forts (err-- cake houses) to be built, rogue patches of rhubarb to pick, and things to climb on. a small round bowl-cut 1993 version of myself would have given anything to hang out on this farm. i was always getting into trouble climbing on our piano and on the fancy statues at ravinia. (in junior high this manifested itself in an indoor rock climbing phase and the aol screen name of roxclimber1. *i know*)

these days it's usually eggboy and eggdad that do the climbing. they climb up into grain bins and onto trucks and tractors for all sorts of reasons, but by far the coolest climbing thing on our farm is a 110 foot grain leg. (here's a visual. the tallest part is the leg, and the things around it are bins.) there are stairs all the way up, and currently there are christmas lights on it to make it look like a candy cane.

but when i say it's the coolest climbing thing, i actually mean it's the scariest climbing thing. i went up there once and it was enough. it was super windy and it sort of felt like being at the top of a roller coaster, only on a roller coaster you're strapped in, so...

the eggparents love it though! they climb up and down when they're preparing for hiking trips, and sometimes they use it as some sort of nutso party trick. i'm pretty sure that some of our wedding guests went up there past dark. oh goodness, i could never do that.

since the lights are up this year, apparently climbing up at night is a hotter ticket than normal, so eggdad commissioned me to make this cake for a darned grain leg climbing party. apparently he's having friends over and we're (they're) going to put coveralls on, climb the grain leg all together, and then come back down and eat cake. sounds horrifying. but you know me: any excuse to make a cake.

squirrels climb, squirrels like nuts, i've never eaten an acorn though, so here's a chocolate hazelnut cake with a marzipan squirrel! it's super lovely and nutty and it has a vanilla hazelnut buttercream filling. it's totally half-able or cupcake-able, and if you'd prefer another marzipan critter, mr. squirrel will be sad but he'll get over it.

chocolate hazelnut cake with vanilla hazelnut frosting

makes one 2-layer 8-inch cake

ingredients

cake:

1 c roasted unsalted hazelnuts, plus more for decorating

1 3/4 c sugar

2 1/4 c flour

1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

2 large eggs

1 c milk

1/2 c vegetable or canola oil

1 tb vanilla extract

3/4 c boiling water

frosting:

1 lb unsalted butter, softened

4 2/3 c powdered sugar

a good pinch of kosher salt

1 tb vanilla extract

decorating:

marzipan kneaded with food coloring, cut into cute shapes

clues

cake:

preheat oven to 350.

grease two 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment.

place the hazelnuts in a food processor and grind them until you have small crumbs. measure out 1/4 cup of the crumbs and set them aside for the filling.

pour the remaining crumbs into a large bowl and whisk in the rest of the dry ingredients. in a medium bowl, whisk together all of the wet ingredients except for the boiling water. whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and then stir in the boiling water. it will be a very thin batter. pour into cake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at 28 minutes.

let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, and then turn them onto a greased cooling rack.

frosting:

use an electric mixer to beat together the butter, powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla until smooth. measure out one cup of the frosting and transfer it to a small bowl. fold in the reserved 1/4 cup of ground hazelnuts. 

assembly:

level your cake layers and spread the top of one of them with the hazelnutty frosting. place the other layer on top, and then frost all over with the remaining frosting. decorate with marzipan cutouts, crushed hazelnuts, sprinkles, or whatever else you'd like!

enjoy! 

pistachio bakewell pop-tarts

in ,

every day, i wake up, boil water for my oatmeal, grab the oats jar from the shelf, pour the oats in the water, and find myself well with the world. but last week molly decided that she needed to buy the massive, only-buy-if-you-own-a-bakery container of sprinkles, and then didn't have anywhere to put them except inside of my oats jar. so, i reached for my oats the next morning and came frighteningly close to melting $50 worth of naturally dyed sugar pellets. this is all coming back to me as i look at those sprinkles on today's pop-tarts. 

i used to love pop-tarts. during every track meet in high school, i would eat a brown sugar cinnamon frosted two-pack to get jacked up for the triple jump. i moved on to other things, though, cuz nobody's ever wanted to be pop-tart boy.

...until these guys popped out of the oven. take it from someone who has only eaten oats and peanut butter for the past 36 hours: these are the real deal. you know when you try to reinvent a favorite childhood food, but with better ingredients and an advanced culinary insight? you think you want somebody to say "holy cow, these are better than dunkaroos!" but what you are actually, secretly, deeply hoping, is that somebody will say "these taste JUST LIKE DUNKAROOS!" and because nothing can compete with childhood nostalgia, if you can bake something that "tastes JUST LIKE DUNKAROOS" today, well, my friend, you have made it.

ba(t)ching update: i was watching the episode where aunt bee leaves andy and opie alone for a few days, and i wished i could relate to their father-son antics, but unfortunately i don't have a mini ron howard around to yell "pa! the chicken's burning!"

-eggboy

pistachio bakewell pop-tarts

makes 8-10

ingredients

1 stick butter, softened

1/4 c sugar

1/4 c pistachio paste

2 large eggs

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c flour

1 lb pie dough

1/4 c jam

1 1/2 c powdered

about 2 tb milk

crushed toasted pistachios and sprinkles

clues

preheat oven to 400. line a baking sheet with parchment and set it aside.

in a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, and pistachio paste. add 1 egg (reserving the other for an egg wash), followed by the lemon juice and extracts.

mix in the salt and flour until just combined.

cut out 8 2-inch by 3-inch squares of pie dough and place them on your baking sheet. spread each with about a teaspoon of jam and top with a healthy blob of pistachio batter. you could also spoon the batter into a piping bag and pipe it on. 

from the remaining pie dough, cut out rectangles that are about 1/4-inch longer on all sides, so that they fit over the filling.

whip up the remaining egg with a splash of water and brush the edges of the tarts. place a layer of pie dough over the top and crimp the edges with a fork. seal the edges well!

poke the tops with a fork a few times and bake for 10-15 minutes, until slightly browned.

let cool.

whisk together the powdered sugar and milk, adding more or less milk to achieve your desired consistency. spread this on the tarts and top with crushed nuts and sprinkles.

enjoy!