blog — molly yeh

almond

valentine's day almond cake

in ,

slowly slowly i am getting back into the groove of things in my post-manuscript life. we ate late-night burgers on a weeknight because it seemed like a fun thing to do, began a jane the virgin addiction to hold us over until house of cards comes out, and on super bowl sunday when our party got cancelled because of a big fat snow storm (!!) we made ricotta gnocchi and actually continued our jane the virgin addiction when it wasn't the halftime show because having to watch football makes me squirmy and anxious. (it's one thing when you have a party with whom you can gossip the whole time, but it's another when it's just you and a male who would probably rather fill out tax forms than watch football.)

we even went for a run outside! it was *quite* crisp and i didn't last very long, but, oh, i need to stick with it because bread, butter, burgers, and schnitzel will really make you feel a little blobby. go figure...

but while this back-to-normal-life thing is really chill and all, perhaps the number two reason why i’m so excited that i met my book deadline (number one was obviously that i don’t face the risk of being sued) is because this is the time when i get to spend a whole entire day baking my annual valentine’s day almond cake and then sitting on my bum and decorating it using allllll of the red and pink things that i want! yusssss. it's the most wonderful time of the year. i look forward to it every winter and lie awake at night dreaming up its design. it is the most fun. 

here is last year's cake, 2014’s, 2013’s, 2012’s, 2011’s, and 2010’s. this year i was inspired by all of the fun valentine’s day goodies in king arthur flour’s shop and made a slight tweak to my usual recipe by subbing out the vanilla extract for *princess emulsion*. have you had this stuff? it smells like butter, sugar, vanilla, almond, citrus, love, and nostalgia all rolled up into a secret potion, or as if the smell of a perfect frosted sugar cookie jumped into a bottle. i might just start dabbing some on my wrists as perfume. you could certainly stick with vanilla extract if you’d like, but this adds a nice little oomph to the flavor!

happy almost valentine’s day, friends!

valentine's day almond cake

serves 10-12

ingredients

cake:

1/2 c king arthur unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
8 oz almond paste
6 large eggs, separated
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp princess emulsion or vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

whipped cream:

1 1/2 c whipping cream
1/2 c powdered sugar
1 tsp almond extract 

assembly:

marzipan kneaded with red, pink, and purple food coloring
sprinkles of all sorts

clues

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease and line the bottom of a 10” springform pan and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and salt to soft peaks and then gradually beat in the sugar, about 1 tablespoon at a time. Continue beating to stiff peaks and then set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (I usually just scoop the whites out of the bowl and transfer them to a separate bowl and then reuse my stand mixer bowl for this step), combine the almond paste and egg yolks and beat on high for 2-3 minutes until pale and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in the princess emulsion or vanilla and almond extract. Gently fold the whites into the yolk mixture and then fold in the flour mixture. Pour the batter into the pan and then bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Begin checking for doneness at 30 minutes.

Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes and then remove to the rack to cool fully.

To make the whipped cream, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the heavy cream, confectioners’ sugar, and almond extract to stiff peaks.

Spread the whipped cream on top of the cake and decorate as desired!

i used the following king arthur flour products in this recipe: all-purpose flour, princess emulsion, almond extract, almond paste, marzipan, sprinkles, cookie cutters, and food coloring. thank you so much, king arthur flour, for sponsoring this post!

-yeh!

marzipan marzipan blueberry cake

in

because it's my birthday.

!!

i bought myself these gifts: health insurance, a set of fringe & fettle bowls, and chickens (they will arrive mid-june!)

i am celebrating in this way: in bismarck, for my friend jean's wedding tomorrow! i plan to get a pedicure and help make cookies for jean's rehearsal dinner and drink and hang out with eggboy. 

i will eat: a greasy breakfast sandwich*, cheese fries*, friday pizza, and this marzipan marzipan cake.

i will drink: anything that is placed in front of me. it might have rhubarb simple syrup in it because i brought my own with me to bismarck.

i will listen to: mahler 5*

i will not: use the internet (too much).

*per tradition

last year i got the tastiest cake in the mail. it was so dense and almondy, i just wanted to lie in a bed of it. it was not too sweet and a perfect cake for the mail because it didn't require any frosting and it's one of those that gets better with age. (can i be one of those??? or do we even talk about age on our birthdays anymore? just cake? you're right, just cake.) it was so delicious and unique that it might have been one of the best cakes i've ever had. so this week, i tracked down the recipe, in amanda hesser's book cooking for mr. latte, and, well, covered it in marzipan. because that seemed like the correct thing to do during my birthday week. i also halved it to make it a mini 6-inch situation and added some blueberry jam because st. dalfour's wild blueberry jam is having a moment in my life right now. also almonds + blueberries = a very good thing.

marzipan marzipan blueberry cake

makes one 2-layer 6-inch cake

cake adapted from amanda hesser's almond cake

ingredients

cake:

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 c unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 c sugar

3.5 oz almond paste, cut into small pieces

2 large egg yolks

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 c all-purpose flour

assembly:

about 1/2 c blueberry jam

about 10 oz marzipan

gel or liquid food coloring

sprinkles

clues

cake:

preheat oven to 350 f. grease two 6-inch cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment.

mix together the sour cream and baking soda and set it aside.

in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. add the almond paste and beat at medium speed for 5 minutes. add the egg yolks one at a time and mix until incorporated. blend in the almond extract, the sour cream mixture, and the salt. reduce mixer to low and gradually add the flour until just combined.

divide the batter between the pans and spread it evenly. bake for about 30 minutes, until the tops are browned and the edges shrink from the sides of the pan. the centers of the cakes will likely cave in a bit once they come out of the oven but that's ok. let the cakes cool for a few minutes in their pans and then turn onto a wire rack to cool fully. you can wrap these in plastic wrap and keep them at room temperature for about a week or so. 

assembly:

level the tops of the cakes, if needed. spread a thick layer of jam on one layer and then place the other layer on top. spread a thin layer of jam all over the entire cake. 

roll your marzipan out on a piece of parchment paper into a large circle, about 1/4 inch thick. use the parchment to help get the marzipan sheet over the cake. smooth the marzipan down over the cake and trim the edges. knead food coloring into any excess marzipan and use it for decorations. stick on your decorations, complete the look with sprinkles!

-yeh!

pictured: cake stand // cake server // rolling pin

italian rainbow cookie cake

in ,

my older sister, stoopie, is celebrating her last birthday of her 20s today! oy! it feels like only yesterday that i was underage and romping around with her id, drinking screwdrivers and skim milk white russians as "22-year-old stoopie." we've been celebrating these past few days in chicago with our family, lots of food, and our signature impressions of al dente noodles. she's been asking me every few minutes if i got her this flask bangle as a gift, and i'm starting to think that she's actually serious about wanting one, but too late, i already got her cute earrings. 

speaking of booze though, this year was such a big stoopie year because a few months ago, she passed her first sommelier test!!!! i'm so excited for her to take the next test soon so she can officially be called a sommelier, and so her name and title can kind of rhyme. (phonetically, she will be so-molly-yay-jenna-yay.) one day i'm gonna bribe her to move to grand forks so that she can be the sommelier for my cake house, and we'll host 30-course wine and cake tasting menus.  

speaking of cake, i made her a birthday cake! an almond cake because i have all of these vivid memories of us making almond cakes when we were little. she would always have first dibs on the can of almond paste and if i was lucky, she'd give me a little nubbin of it. our family loves almondy things. we have our valentine's day italian almond cake tradition, but oddly, we never had italian almond cookies growing up.

i didn't even discover these cookies until i moved to new york, and even then, for the longest time, i had no interest in them. i didn't know that they were almond flavored, as i'd only heard them referred to as "rainbow cookies." i'd see them when i went to buy black and white cookies at zabar's or fairway, but i questioned why anyone would buy these artificially colored random looking things when they could buy a black and white cookie. i was skeptical, but the seed was planted in my brain when i saw my little new yorky cousins gobbling them up during rosh hashanah, and then finally, when i was served a fancy freshly made one at torrisi, i was convinced. i discovered that these little guys aren't cookies, they're dense, rich almond cakes, glued together with jam, and cut into perfect little bites. it was the punch of almond that got me, these things are loaded with almond paste.

i became so obsessed that stoop and mum made a batch in (what they thought were) juilliard colors for my senior recital. some time after that, i fished out miniature versions of them from the bottom of a sundae at kutsher's with devra and my cousin eitan, before we even discovered that we're cousins. that year around the holidays, i made a shitton using torrisi's recipe and fed them to the earliest version of san fermin, which was huge and had some lucius.

full disclosure: a younger, less experienced and more stressed out version of myself wrote this about my first time making them. i've since chilled out, but there is some truth in my earlier frustrations: making these cookies/this cake is a process. it takes an entire day if you're fast, two days if you cruise, and maybe even three if you feel like blanching your own almonds and/or making your own almond paste. it's a cake for your holiday break, or one to call in sick for. but, trust, it's worth it.

italian rainbow cookie cake

makes one 8-inch cake

ingredients

6 eggs, separated

1 1/4 c + 2 tb sugar

1 1/3 c almond paste, chopped

2 c unsalted butter, softened

1 tb lemon juice

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp kosher salt

2 2/3 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp red food coloring

1 tsp green food coloring

1/2 c + 2 tb apricot jam (or 6 tb apricot jam and 4 tb raspberry jam or vice versa)

12 oz dark or semisweet chocolate chips

1 c heavy cream

cocoa powder for dusting, optional

dinosaurs, optional

 

clues

preheat oven to 350. grease and line as many 8-inch cake pans as you have. you'll need to make six layers total. (i have three cake pans, so i baked the layers in two batches, but if you just have two, you can bake in three batches.)

in a large bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. gradually beat in 6 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating until you have stiff peaks.

in another large bowl, beat together the remaining cup of sugar, the almond paste, and butter. add the egg yolks, one at a time. beat in the lemon juice and almond extract, and then gradually sprinkle in the salt. add the flour and beat until combined.

fold the egg whites into the almond paste mixture and then divide the mixture evenly into three bowls. mix the red food coloring into one, the green food coloring into another, and then leave the last one as it is.

divide each of these mixtures in half and pour into separate cake pans. (again, if you don't have all six cake pans, just fill however many you've got, and then cover the batter that you're not using until it's ready to bake.) use a spatula to spread the batter as evenly as you can in the pan and then bake for 10-12 minutes, until the tops are just set, or no longer shiny and wet. let cool slightly in the pans, run a knife around the edges, and then carefully flip onto a greased cooling rack or greased sheet of parchment. bake remaining layers.

when the layers are cool, stack them up on a cake board or plate, spreading 2 tablespoons of jam between each. don't put jam on the top. wrap the sucker tightly in plastic wrap and then refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. 

to make the chocolate ganache, place the chocolate chips in a large bowl. heat the heavy cream until it is just starting to boil, and then pour it over the chocolate. let sit for 30 seconds, and then stir it all together to get a smooth ganache. you can either pour the ganache over the cake or refrigerate the ganache for an hour, whip it up until it's pale and fluffy, and then frost the cake with an offset spatula (this is what's pictured). decorate your cake how you'd like, dust it with cocoa powder, add dinosaurs, and enjoy!

happy birthday, stoopie!!

-yeh!!!