blog — molly yeh

vanilla

a vanilla prelaunch cake

in

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!

 

tahini cupcakes with chocolate tahini frosting

in

good heavens, i was such a such a grown-up this weekend! i did laundry, ironed linens, filed taxes... i even improvised a creamed spinach recipe! oyoyoy i don't know how grownups do it. there is always some house thing to be done, and as soon as you think you've finished, suddenly another six soap dispensers are empty and you have to go around and refill them, and suddenly another meal time rolls around and you can't justify microwaving another frozen burrito. can't i just watch kimmy schmidt all day? do i need a dog to help keep the floor clean? maybe one of those roomba vacuums? 

(side note: i don't know how i went so long without creamed spinach. wow! creamed spinach is good.)

behind all of my kvetching, what i'm really saying is that for the first time in what feels like a very long while, eggboy and i had a nice normal weekend at home. even though i miss my camp friends and my schnitzel friends, it feels so good to be farm humans again, back around the eggs and frank underwood and my brunch club volleyball homies. i missed grand forks. 

and it doesn't hurt that it was effing 70 degrees out! this time last year we were hunkering down for a blizzard, but now eggboy and eggdad are getting the tractors ready for planting and the idea of a two-harvest season has been bouncing around, oh it makes me so excited. that's only happened once in the last 70 years, but if this outrageously early spring remains, maybe it could happen again??? i don't know anything. i probably just jinxed it. 

it occurred to me that i haven't made a cupcake in a few weeks, and i feared that my cupcake frosting muscle memory was fading. you too? ok, let's make cupcakes. here are some little guys that appear to be your basic chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, but they are more than that! they are nutty and tahini-y and moist and i swear if one of you can find me a synonym for moist, i will love you forever. the chocolate frosting is nice and fluffy, it plays very well with this super soft cake. this is not your average cupcake, this is a cupcake that says, happy tuesday, you sophisticated grownup! 

tahini cupcakes with chocolate tahini frosting

makes 24 cupcakes

ingredients

cupcakes:

2 c sugar

2 1/4 c flour

1 1/2 tsp each: baking powder, baking soda, kosher salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 large eggs

1 c buttermilk

1 tb vanilla extract

2 tb flavorless oil, like canola

6 tb tahini

3/4 c water

frosting:

1 c unsalted butter, softened

3/4 c tahini

3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder

2 c powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

a pinch of kosher salt

a pinch of cinnamon

clues

make the cupcakes:

preheat oven to 350. line and grease two cupcake pans and set them aside.

in a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients. in a medium bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, oil, and tahini. add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix to combine. stir in the water. pour into cupcake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at 18 minutes.

let cool for a few minutes in the pans and then transfer to a wire rack to cool fully.

make the frosting:

beat together the butter and tahini. beat in the cocoa powder, and then the powdered sugar. add vanilla, salt, and cinnamon. taste and make adjustments as desired. 

frost your cupcakes, add sprinkles, and enjoy!

-yeh!

this post features goodies from one of my very favorite new stores, wilson and willy's! they're based in minneapolis and they sell the coolest, most beautiful american-made goodies, like those bowls and linens in the above photos, and a kickass hackwith + faribault line. i am so in love with this store and you guys should be too! 

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! 

vanilla cake, vanilla frosting, and a marzipan succulent

in

oof! nobody told me that the first week back to work after a wedding/chrismukkah double feature is about as fun as peeing in a public bathroom. *flips hair/rolls eyes* ok, i'm being extremely dramatic, but still, i was a grumpy gabby more times this week than i'm willing to admit (maybe i've got a case of the januaries???), so i'm just going to weed all of those out and tell you about some of the finer moments from these past few days:

eggboy and i made butter!!! we were discussing the origins of fairy bread and how we could elevate it to best fit our grownup married life and i suggested using homemade butter, to which he responded what? no. that's wizardry. you can't make butter. and then i showed him, the old heavy cream in a jar way, and it blew his mind. he tried to drink the whey because he thought it would make him buff. 

the destruction, or rather transplanting, of my gingerbread farm. i was ready to burn it to the ground because it's taking up precious dining room space and getting coconut everywhere, but eggdad refused to see that happen, so i think he's actually "renting out space in our basement" to store it while he researches the best shellac method for gingerbread buildings. 

my first hotdish. ok, for how many failed recipes i made this week, i deserved to nail this one on the first try. i nailed it like a nail gun going into plywood. nay, styrofoam. it smelled so good, it tasted great, and it's even healthy. as soon as i figure out how to make it look not like the grossest barf in all the land, i'm going to show it to you!

a whole bunch of "cold day" pictures and texts from my parents, in chicago, depicting "cold day" marathon bread baking sessions and "cold day" crafts. they were cute, but from what i can understand, a "cold day" is like a snow day without a whole lot of snow, just a lot of cold. and based on my weather app, that cold was a balmy one degree. did you know that in the st. paul school system the temperature requirement for a cold day is negative 40????? chicago, you are a bunch of penises*.

*ugh, you're right, i shouldn't judge, i don't ever leave the house during the winter and when i do i look like a michelin man. 

my brunch club began to plan the baby shower for our first brunch club baby!!!!! i've never planned a baby shower before but i am soooo excited. it's not for three and a half months and i already have the menu planned. teeny weeny sandwiches, teeny weeny scones, teeny weeny cocktail weenies. 

and for what is sure to be the finest moment of this week: egg mama's birthday tomorrow!!!! seven cheers for egg mama. egg mama is an o.g. farm wife, a master at many things (my favorite of which is chicken and dumpling soup), and the best mother-in-law an egg girl could ever ask for!!

this little cake is for her and it's a great great grand baby of magnolia's chocolate cupcakes. i've made that chocolate cupcake recipe countless times and each time people tell me that it's the best cake they've ever had. even "people who don't normally like cake" like this cake. it's so rich and unbelievably m-word (ok, moist). i've had difficulty finding a vanilla cake that i love just as much as those chocolate cupcakes, almost to the point of obsession, but i think i've found it. this vanilla cake retains the fierce moisture that makes those chocolate cupcakes so good, yet it's just the slightest bit denser, making it easier to handle in layer cake form. the one pictured here is a half batch, which i've simply baked in an 8" pan, frozen over night, and then cut into three 3 1/4-inch rounds and frosted. you can choose to frost it all naked (like the one in the picture) or double the frosting recipe and slather it up because it is january 8th and your diet should be over by now. 

vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and a marzipan succulent

makes one 2-layer 8-inch cake

ingredients

cake:

1 3/4 c sugar

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp each: baking soda, baking powder, kosher salt

2 large eggs

1 c buttermilk

1/2 c flavorless oil, like canola

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 c boiling water

frosting**:

1 c unsalted butter, softened

1 1/3 c powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

a pinch of kosher salt

**this will make enough frosting for a naked cake (like the cake in the picture). if you'd like to slather on a thick layer of frosting all over the cake, double this recipe.

succulent:

a nice handful of marzipan

green food coloring

flower cookie cutters in three sizes (or you could free-hand it!)

 

 

clues

cake:

preheat oven to 350.

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

in a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients. in a medium bowl, whisk together all 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 the tops are lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at 28 minutes.

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

frosting:

use an electric mixer to beat all ingredients together until smooth. taste and add more sugar, if desired. 

to assemble:

level your cakes and slap a hefty dose of frosting in between them and on top. smooth a thin layer of frosting all over the edges and use a bench scraper to scrape down the sides until they're smooth.

succulent:

knead a small amount of food coloring into your marzipan. roll it out on a surface dusted with powdered sugar and cut out three flower shapes in three different sizes. stack them up with the biggest on the bottom and press down in the center so that they stick. you could also place a small dollop of frosting between them to help them stick. crimp up the flower petals to give it some dimension. place it on your cake!

 

happy birthday, egg mama!!

-yeh!