a vanilla prelaunch cake

how are we talking about cake after monday's pizza overload fourth of july festivities??? i dunno. i ate so much pizza because it was so smoky and good from the campfire, and it was covered in all of the fresh herbs that we're getting from our garden, and also because my new favorite dress that i wear every day is like wearing a pillow case so i have no idea how to gauge when i've eaten too much pizza. meh! happy belated 4th to you!! i really hope you ate flag cake and drank spritzes aplenty. 

today this fun new-to-me thing starts, called a book prelaunch! i've never done one of these before, obvi, but from what i can gather, i think i'm going to approach it as if it's the chrismukkah season (and chrismukkah is actually october 4th, the molly on the range release date). so instead of peppermint/gingerbread/gift guide holiday content, i'll be periodically posting behind the scenes looks at the making of molly on the range and some recipes that didn't make the final cut but are still really good, and instead of secret santa, there will be surprise preorder giveaways scattered about the next few months (!!!), and instead of the eight days of hanukkah arriving at the end of it all, there will be more like 28 days of me showing up in your town* and talking about molly on the range and making you cake! 

*specific towns are tbd and idk if it'll be exactly 28 days

i'm still working on what kind of tree we're going to decorate for the occasion and i'm trying to persuade eggboy to write a song about it. or maybe you're a songwriter and want to write a song for the season?? what's confirmed is that there will be cake (actually two cakes) for those who preorder my book! because this first preorder giveaway includes:

-the recipe for this very vanilla layer cake, along with some choose-your-own-adventure ideas for adding various mix-ins and flavorings and nuts and things

-the recipe for a pumpkin walnut layer cake with cream cheese frosting that is going to make you sooooo excited for the fall

-cake frosting tips!

to download these bad boyz, preorder the book, and then enter your info here.

and preordering now will also make you eligible for the next few giveaways which i'll be announcing soon!!

happy prelaunch season everyone! *throws sprinkles in the air*

-yeh!

frosted red velvet cakies

you want to hear something super crazy town?? sugar beet harvest is almost dunzo, making it one of the best harvests in recent history!! typically, weather will really draw things out, making the beeties too cold or too hot or too wet or too dry, causing the boys to work through the end of october. but aside from a little pause last week when it snowed (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), they've been out there for 24 hours a day to pull them puppies out of the ground, and they are almost all out!

do you know what this means??1?1?!!!!! we finally get to watch the season premiere of homeland! and i can once again split the dishes duties with someone. and we can get caught up on wedding planning. and i can have a real reason to make real dinner since when it's just me, dinner is too often cheese on toast, salami on toast, toast on toast, a corn dog, or cookies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i am so excited.

i've started to plan the end-of-harvest party, which somehow has to top last year's, which took place at the one n only. it's gotta be meaty because it's for a bunch of dudes that drive trucks and harvesters and tractors. dessert is the easy part though, because it's got to involve these here red velvet cakies, from izy's magnificent book. (cookie + cake = cakie). when i made them last week, i had one bite and knew that if i didn't give them away immediately, they would become breakfast, lunch, and dinner. they are the most addicting thing i've made in a very long time. so i brought some out to visit eggboy and gave them to all of the truck drivers and they went gaga over them. so soft, so perfectly red-velvety.

i wouldn't expect anything less than izy though. she is a gem and i've been a fan of her blog, top with cinnamon, for a while now, not just for the recipes, but also for a glimpse into the life of a high schooler in london. (whatever "a-levels" are, they sound mega intense.) we met at the saveur awards in may, and she is just as delightful as you'd expect from reading her blog. she even followed all the funny american drinking age rules and didn't drink a sip of booze despite the fact that a whiskey maker sponsored the thing and despite the fact that i offered to sneak her some when no one was looking. classy lady, that izy. who also knows when to use jazz hands. 

so her book, i love it. the dishes are flavorful in new-to-me ways, sophisticated without being stuffy, and earthy with a nice dose of comfort. at first glance, i thought i'd have to google some things (like "is aubergine an eggplant? or is that zucchini?") but then i saw that it's all specified in the fine print and it made me really happy and want to have a british accent. this book is heavy on the sweets and baked goods--which, naturally, i love--and there are also some savory beauties, like the sweet and sticky pork, which i have made multiple times now and each time i've licked that sauce right out of the pan. 

if izy were american, i'm convinced that these cakies would have turned out as whoopie pies. they have a very similar texture, and truth be told, i might have sandwiched a few together to eat, mostly so that i could get more in my mouth at once. i do like the open-facedness of them though because that calls for sprinkles, and as izy points out, a better cake-to-frosting ratio. they're dangerously good, so when you make them, be sure that you have a few friends on call to come over and eat some so you don't eat them all yourself and get a bellyache. 

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frosted red velvet cakies

from top with cinnamon

[makes 24]

ingredients

1/2 c (110g // 3 3/4 oz) unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 c (220g // 7 3/4 oz) sugar

2 eggs

1/4 c sour cream or plain yogurt

2 tb cocoa powder

1 tb red food coloring

2 c (250g // 9 oz) all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

cream cheese frosting:

6 tb (75g // 2 1/2 oz) unsalted butter, softened

5 oz (150g) cream cheese

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 c (150g // 5oz) powdered sugar

clues

preheat oven to 350f (180c // gas 4). line a baking tray with parchment. cream together the butter, vanilla extract, and sugar in a medium bowl until fluffy. stir in the eggs, sour cream, cocoa powder, and red food coloring until evenly combined. stir in the flour and baking powder.

drop heaped tablespoons of the mixture onto the lined baking tray, spacing them about 1 inch (2.5 cm) apart. Bake for 8 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

meanwhile, mix together all the frosting ingredients until smooth. use a butter knife or palette knife to swirl the frosting on top of the cakies. they can be stored in an airtight container for 3-4 days.

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-yeh!

raspberry pistachio mini pavlovas + a giveaway

haaaaappy monday, everybody!!

how were all of your weekends? mine was as relaxing as can be, right down to the socks with birkenstocks that i wore outside not once but twice (!!!) for warmth (low was in the 30s!), comfort, and to imitate my style icons the olsen twins. i did all the fall things: hosted an apple picking party, made caramel apples, made chicken with apples, made a (sadly flopped) honey cake with apples... and then wrapped things up by watching miss america at the town pizza parlor and it was magnificent.

today a thing called beet harvest pre-haul starts! it's basically the amuse-bouche of beet harvest: you get all of your equipment ready, start picking from your fields, and take in a sampling of beets to the plant so you're ready to get your harvest on come october first. there is a big truck filled with beets in our yard right now! i am tempted to yoink one and do recipe experiments but i'm afraid to climb up onto the truck. actually mostly i'm afraid to go outside right now because of the cold. 

ok now let me tell you about these pavlovas. first, the person behind these pavlovas, who is also one of my favorite bloggers ever, stephanie! i feel like she doesn't need an introduction because if you read my blog then you've seen the zillion times i've linked to her blog and if you've seen her blog even just once you know she is the tops. she is also the tops in real life, we were each other's dates to the saveur awards when our men couldn't make it, and if we lived in the same town, i could see some major kimmy gibbler/d.j. tanner action happening. her joyful and fun personality oozes from her work the way the hollandaise oozes from this grilled cheese. i've made so many of her recipes and they are all delicious while managing to be shockingly simple... which is why it is about time that her book comes out! i can't sing enough praise about it. it's inspiring, it's approachable, it's creative, it's flavorful, it's nothing you don't want, it's fit for pretty much anyone. i see these pictures and think, shit, i cannot make that. and then i read the recipes and i'm like, wait a second, i think i can. i think i can. i think i can. and so pictured here is the first ever pavlova i ever did make. and despite me planning on having people over to help us finish them, eggboy and i demolished them and didn't even look back. 

they're fluffy, airy little creatures with a perfect amount of sweetness, sourness from the raspberries, and savoriness from the pistachios. they also look cute, like a cartoon version of a dessert. but they're real! and real good.

raspberry pistachio mini pavlovas

from stephanie le's book, easy gourmet

makes 14 mini pavlovas

ingredient

2 large egg whites

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 c sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp white wine vinegar

1/4 c pistachios, roughly chopped

1/2 c whipping cream, whipped into soft peaks

1 c raspberries

chopped pistachios, to serve

clues

preheat oven to 350ºf.

with an electric mixer, whip the egg whites with the salt until peaks start to form. add the sugar in a slow stream. continue to whip until the eggs are shiny and stiff. sprinkle in the cornstarch, vanilla, vinegar, and pistachios. gently fold to combine.

scoop the meringue into equal mounds on a parchment-lined baking sheet. place in the oven and immediately turn down to 300ºf and bake for 25 minutes. turn the oven off and leave in for another 25 minutes and then remove from the oven. cool completely.

to serve, top with softly whipped cream, raspberries, and an extra sprinkle of chopped pistachios.

note: if you want super-green pistachios, blanch them in boiling water for 10-15 seconds. strain, then rub with a clean towel to remove their skins. if the skins are still clinging, keep the pistachios in cold water as you rub.

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annnnd.... i'm giving away a copy of easy gourmet! to enter this giveaway, leave a comment with the best dessert you've ever had! this giveaway is open to u.s. residents only.

update 9/22: this giveaway is now closed and the winner has been notified. thanks so much everyone!

-yeh!!

pistachio cream cake with chocolate ganache + a giveaway

one of my smiliest moments as a jewish transplant in this predominantly scandinavian town has been seeing my norwegian future family-in-law incorporate the word nosh into their vocabulary. many little snacks have been enjoyed over conversation and etymology lessons about the word nosh, and to see the egg family realize that there is a name for this thing they so love to do is satisfying in the most jewish motherly way. i squeal every time the egg dad knocks on our door, asking if he can come in for a nosh (he keeps a jar of unsalted peanuts in our house for when there's no time to walk all the way across the street to his house). hehe. 

noshing might be my favorite way to enjoy a cake. i get so much more joy out of having one itsy bitsy sliver every hour or so than i do having a large piece after a meal or with afternoon tea. the calories seem way less significant that way too. there are currently four half-eaten cakes floating around my kitchen, and probably twice that in my freezer, so a lot of varied cake noshing gets done around these parts.

recently i've found myself going back over and over to the same cake--neglecting pumpkin cake and sprinkle cake even--to this pistachio beauty from jessica's book, seriously delish! it's a sturdy nutty creature filled with tangy mascarpone and covered in thick ganache. it was a huge hit at my brunch club this weekend, and luckily there were leftovers for me to... nosh on. making it commands nothing in the way of decorating skills because in its purest form--chocolate on top of cake on top of mascarpone on top of cake--it is a delicious thing of beauty. 

ok and can you guys just let me gush about this cookbook for a second though?

i honestly don't remember the last time i stayed up so late reading a book. i mean, i like reading and i do it a lot, but in bed, when sleep is looming, i usually just conk out and ideally dream about fluffy puppies. but then when jessica's book arrived the other day, i tore into it like it was going out of style (it's not gonna) and i did not stop until well past midnight, which in my grandma-esque mind is pretty much nearly sun up.

jessica's fun and lovable personality, which has made her blog one of the happiest places on the internet, has taken on physical form in this book and there are so many recipes that i can't wait to try: baked breakfast risotto, chicken pitas with jalapeño whipped feta & quick tzatziki, whole wheat blueberry bundt cake, and a handful of outrageous grilled cheeses. having this book on my shelf has made my kitchen even brighter.

pistachio cream cake with chocolate ganache

from jessica merchant's seriously delish

serves 8

ingredients

cake:

1 1/3 c unsalted pistachios

1 1/3 c cake flour

1 1/3 c all-purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 c (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/4 c sugar

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 c whole milk

filling:

2/3 c mascarpone cheese, at room temperature

2 tb unsalted butter

1 1/2 c sugar

1 1/2 tsp whole milk

ganache:

8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 c heavy cream

clues

1. preheat the oven to 350f. spray two 9-inch cake pans with nonstick spray*. cut a round sheet of parchment paper, place on the bottom of each pan, and spray once more with nonstick spray. set them aside. 

*i made this with two 6-inch pans and my new favorite (mini cake!) pan and it worked marvelously.

2. add 1 cup of the pistachios to a food processor and pulse and blend until very small crumbs remain. measure out 1/4 cup of the crumbs and set them aside for the filling. place the remaining crumbs in a bowl. in a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, and salt.

3. in the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on high speed until fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. add the eggs one at a time, beating on medium speed after each addition. add the vanilla extract and beat for 1 more minute. add the pistachio crumbs, beating on medium speed until incorporated. with the mixer on low speed, gradually add in half of the dry ingredients. add the milk, mixing until combined. add the remaining dry ingredients and beat on medium until the batter comes together, scraping down the sides of the bowl if needed.

4. scoop the batter equally into the greased and lined cake pans. bake the cakes until the tops are golden brown and set, 25 to 30 minutes. remove the pans from the oven and let the cakes cool for 20 minutes in the pans, then invert the pans and remove the cakes. let them cool completely on a wire rack.

5. for the filling, beat the mascarpone and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer on high speed until creamy. add the reserved crushed pistachios, beating until combined, then adjust the speed to low and gradually add the sugar. add the milk and beat the filling for 1 to 2 minutes on high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl if needed.

6. place one of the cakes on a plate or stand. spread the filling evenly over the top of the cake, then place the other cake on top of the filling.

7. for the ganache, add the chocolate to a large bowl. heat the cream in a small saucepan over medium heat just until it bubbles around the edges. remove the cream from the heat and pour it over the chocolate. let the chocolate stand for 30 seconds, then stir continuously until the chocolate melts and a smooth ganache comes together, 1 to 2 minutes. pour the ganache over the cake.

8. chop the remaining 1/3 cup of pistachios coarsely and sprinkle them over the cake.

9. this cake will stay fresh for 1 to 2 days if kept at room temperature and wrapped in plastic wrap or covered with a cake dome. i like to keep it in the fridge, where it will keep for an additional 2 to 3 days.

and lastly, i'm giving away a copy of seriously delish! (this giveaway is open to u.s. residents only, i'm sorry!!) to enter, leave a comment with the last thing you ate that was... seriously delish :)

update 9/12/14: this giveaway is now closed.

-yeh!!!!