blog — molly yeh

sweets

glazed apple cider donuts

in ,

i went to portland for 1.5 seconds this weekend! what a neat-o, beautiful place. i had only been to the pacific northwest once before, a very very long time ago for like the 1997 eugene bach festival or something, so my clearest reference point for what the pacific northwest looks like was actually that zach efron movie, charlie st. cloud. it is a very weird movie but it has a wildly hunky dark moody forest-y hilly scenery, and i got to experience that in person this weekend! i totally now get why my entire instagram feed is so in love with the p.n.w. 

and it was the loveliest backdrop for the hello sessions, a new blog conference that i hope was the first of many because joy and melissa did such a great job with it! when i wasn't food styling and schmoozing with the hello sessioners, i was snooping around the pearl district, touching all of the cookbooks in the middle eastern section of powell's, eating tasty quiche, and searching for the perfect full body sweater. i found an ok one, it was just a little bit too wooly scratchy.

and then! on saturday night, i ventured out into oregon wine country for an amazing meal hosted by chelsey and maggie in the newspaper printing warehouse that's been in chelsey's family for four generations. it was so cool. and tasty (thanks to letumeat!) and local. i loved it.

now i am back on the farm, adjusting to post-harvest life and working on my hotdish skills. 

how was your weekend?!

i have some big news i need to share: i've surrendered to baked donuts. for quite some time, i was on the fence about them: are they really donuts? or are they just donut shaped muffins? are they hiding something? or are they real, honest desserts?

my skepticism was more or less 100% brought on by the fact that i didn't yet own a donut pan, so even if i wanted to, i couldn't join in on the fun. but all of that has changed, thanks to the good people at king arthur flour. i'm a new woman. and i have found that the shape of a donut, the ratio of surface area to glaze, and the instagrammability (😂 sorry, i had to) indeed makes the experience of a baked donut different than that of a muffin. so to begin this new baked donut phase of my life, we have a classic soft apple cider donut that goes the non-traditional route of having a white glaze. nothing against the traditional cinnamon sugar coating, i just love the texture and sweetness of a glaze and its ability to keep the sprinkles on.

glazed apple cider donuts

makes 10-12

ingredients

1/2 c sugar

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp kosher salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tb apple pie spice

1 large egg

1/2 c whole milk

1/4 c flavorless oil, like canola

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 c boiled cider or thawed apple juice concentrate

glaze:

1 c powdered sugar mixed with 5 tb heavy cream

decorations:

sprinkles + cinnamon sugar

clues

preheat the oven to 375ºf. grease a 12-cavity donut pan and set it aside.

in a large bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients. in a separate medium bowl, whisk together all wet ingredients. add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture and stir to combine.

Fill a piping bag with the batter and pipe the batter into the donut pans, filling each cavity halfway.

Bake for 12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a donut comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Remove to a rack and cool completely.

To decorate the donuts, dip them halfway into the glaze and then allow excess glaze to drip off. Sprinkle the tops with sprinkles and/or cinnamon sugar and enjoy!

i used the following king arthur products in this recipe: boiled cider, all-purpose flour, apple pie spice, donut pans, vanilla extract, cinnamon vanilla sugar, caramel sugar, rainbow sugar, and perhaps the quirkiest sugar i ever did taste, butternut sugar! these are all ingredients that i would recommend and i am so excited to be partnering with them on this post and on some upcoming posts! thanks so much, king arthur! 

-yeh!

coconut marzipan tractor cookie cutouts

in

something that i was taught when i moved to the farm was that farmers fall into one of three main tractor camps: john deere, case, and new holland. i had already known about john deere because remember in high school when clothes with the john deere logo were popular for no reason according to kids in the suburbs who had never been to farms? but when i got here i quickly learned all about case because eggboy is a case man and case is the best (!) and here, look at case win tug of war against john deere. so all of our tractors and things are red which look really nice against the golden yellow wheat, a bit christmas-y against the beet greens, and in general, a really nice look and i applaud past generations of eggs for their decision to go with case.

the last time mum was in town we found this tractor cookie cutter at the home of economy and the cookie cutter guy on the tractor has eggboy's hat, so we had no choice but to get one. i took him for a little spin last week to celebrate the first day of wheat harvest and naturally, i was expected to decorate my cookies with red. no green food coloring in site.

here i'm using a recipe and decorating technique from juliet sear's new book, cakeology. what a book! it is like the triple black diamond ski slopes of cake decorating, with airbrushed things and intricate hand painted things and the hamburger cake to end all hamburger cakes and they are so gosh darn beautiful. i think it's going to be a good few years before i can master one of those cakes, but it is something to aim for! the cutout cookies in her book are so tasty and fun to decorate though and i love the idea of using the same cookie cutter for both the cookie and the layer of decoration. juliet uses fondant for her doggie cutouts, but here i'm using some coconut marzipan that i picked up in new york a few months ago (and also kate's book has a recipe for it that i've been meaning to try). of course, feel free to use any cutout shape that you'd like. but if you use a tractor, you'd better decorate it red :)

coconut marzipan tractor cookie cutouts

adapted from juliet sear's cakeology

ingredients

7 oz unsalted butter, softened

3/4 c sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 2/3 c all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

for decorating:

16 oz coconut marzipan or regular marzipan, kneaded with a bit of food coloring

about 1/4 c frosting or icing, for sticking 

clues

Preheat the oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with parchment.

Place the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla into a mixing bowl and mix until just combined, either by hand or using a stand mixer on low. The mix should still look grainy but be thoroughly incorporated.

Add the egg a little at a time with your mixer on low or with a wooden spoon, until fully incorporated.

Add the flour to the mixture and mix until a dough forms. If the mix is a little sticky, add a little more flour, or, alternatively, if it’s a bit dry add a few drops of water. You will know it’s right when the dough comes together without leaving sticky traces on the bowl and it forms into a nice shiny pliable ball.

Dust the work surface with flour and roll out the cookie dough to 1/4 inch thick. 

Cut out your shapes, place them on the cookie sheets, and Bake for 10–12 minutes until golden brown around the edges. Cool on a wire rack.

to decorate, roll out the marzipan and cut out shapes using the same cookie cutter that you used for the cookies. pipe a few squiggles of frosting onto the cookies and then stick the marzipan directly on top.

enjoy!

-yeh!

a macaron party

in ,

one thing about living 1,500 miles from the closest ladurée is that a french macaron sighting is literally less common than an albino buffalo sighting. 

so we compensate.  

we put on the french café spotify radio, we wear stripes and invite the town french teacher, and we pile into my kitchen to beat egg whites to stiff peaks and pipe dozens of little macaron shells. 

ok i'm saying this as if this is some sort of weird tradition that we do every month. we don't. yet. but! we did this past weekend for the first time and in the time that it would have taken us to ride the 6 train up lexington and then wait in line for ladurée (and take instagrams of our ladurée), we whipped up our batter, drank wine, made a sprinkle mess, and then ate macarons to the point of belly aches. well, really i got the belly ache, all of my friends are on wedding diets or whatever.

it was so fun!! i love a good chewy macaron. 

want to have your own macaron party?? here are my tips!

make a batch of shells in advance. this isn't 100% necessary if you have mad macaron skills, but i recommend doing this to a) make sure that you have the recipe down (here's my recipe) and b) so that there are some extra shells to fill while the ones that you actually make at the party are baking. 

sift the almond flour/powdered sugar mixture in advance. this process takes so long! it helps to do it in advance (or do most of it in advance and then demonstrate with the rest once guests arrive). 

buttercream. make a big batch of plain buttercream in advance and then set out extracts, food coloring, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and other flavorings so that guests can make their own macaron fillings.   

the setup. each guest should have a baking sheet with parchment (or you can have two guests to a baking sheet), one piping bag for the macaron batter, one piping bag for buttercream, a rubber spatula, a bowl for frosting, a plate for finished macarons, and a container for taking some home. also have some kitchen towels on hand, as well as decorations, like sprinkles! 

don't forget the salty snacks and wine. salty snacks because all of that playing with buttercream will make you crave them. i served sea salted butter dipped radishes, mini quiche, and caramelized onion tarts. and wine, of course! i served kendall-jackson's grand reserve late harvest chardonnay. omg it is so good. 

timeline. make the batter as soon as guests arrive, fill their piping bags, and get piping. since the macarons take a bit of time to sit/bake/cool, get this step out of the way and mingle/nosh/drink afterwards. at some point before the macarons come out of the oven, mix the buttercream and fill piping bags. assemble the macarons, decorate, and eat! 

-yeh!

thanks so much to chantell ziegler for helping with these photos!!

and thanks so much to kendall-jackson for sponsoring this post!! all opinions are mine mine mine.

pictured: this dress

fresh mint peep cake toppers + other ways to accessorize your cheesecake

happy easter eve/second night of passover, everyone!!! i'm on brisket hangover. also real hangover bc four glasses of wine is apparently a lot. we had a delightful little seder yesterday, complete with charoset truffles and the j-date e-haggadah, which is actually even more ridiculous than it sounds. i subbed half of the potatoes for tater tots in the sussmans' brisket kugel and received a covering-the-bitch-in-tater-tots lesson from eggboy, because apparently in midwest hotdish tradition you don't just put tater tots on top of a casserole and stick it in the oven. you have to carefully place them on in perfect rows, as many of them that will fit, and the rows have to be very very straight. i've never seen eggboy this passionate about a food that isn't eggs or steel cut oats or peanut butter before, so i gave him full reign and it turned out really nicely. 

and yep, there was ketchup. 

we breezed through the afikoman and then ate our brisket hotdish in front of the second harry potter, which was a little bit scary and we totally forgot to eat macaroon cake. so now we are about to bring it to fargo to celebrate easter with eggsister and eggsisterspecialfriend and egguncle! we're gonna dye eggs. eggs dying eggs eating eggs hunting for eggs. the eggiest party, probably ever. 

ok did you think i would allow this easter to pass without a homemade peep? it's ok, i did. but after stumbling upon my peeps mold in the basement a few weeks ago, i realized i'd better not let that go to waste after just one year. so i made cake toppers with it! and stuck them into cheesecake.

cheesecake is a new frontier for me. after the great cheesecake overdose of 1998, i had a bit of an aversion to cheesecake. and then when i was baking at the town bakery, i always tried to avoid baking the cheesecakes because they took sooooooo long to make and in the end, i didn't even really get to frost them and decorating options felt really limited. but i'm trying not to discriminate against cake these days (hi, parsley cake!), so i'm dipping my toes in and starting with the decorations in a semi-homemade situation (hi, sandra!). one day soon i'm going to conquer a replica of piccolo angolo's ricotta cheesecake but today is not that day. it is easter eve. happy easter eve! 

fresh mint peep cake toppers // the fresh mint in these creates for a nice refreshing bunny! my recipe is right this way. simply follow the directions for infusing the bunnies with herbs, using a couple of sprigs of fresh mint. when they're dry, stick their butts with wooden skewers and then stick them in your cheesecake.

create pretty stencil designs // cut out some fun paper shapes, place them on your cheesecake, and then dust the top with powdered sugar or cocoa powder. gently (with tweezers??) remove the stencils.

chocolate drizzles // melt a bit of chocolate either in a double boiler or in a microwave at 30-second increments. spoon the chocolate into a piping bag, cut the teensiest little hole out of the piping bag, hold it high above your cake and then apply constant pressure to the piping bag as you move it quickly back and forth. 

sprinkles // duh. 

all of the cakes in these photos are part of daiya's new dairy free, gluten free, and soy free frozen cheezecake line!

-yeh!

pictured: green cake stand // white cake stand // gold fork

this post is sponsored by daiya! all opinions are my own. the cheesecakes in these photos are part of daiya's new dairy free, gluten free, soy free cheezecake line, which features four varieties: new york, chocolate, strawberry, and key lime. they're now available at whole foods! here is a $1 off coupon!