saffron, cardamom, and rosewater tiramisu

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spring planting has officially begun and i have had the most splendid week, baking up a storm, using up all of the flour to make room in the world for eggboy to grow more wheat. or something like that! in the past few days i made my first malawach, my first kuku, and also did some serious carrot cake experiments and ramp pickling because eggboy brought home 16 bunches the other day. i had the mindy project on in the background this whole week and now i don’t think i’ll be able to watch it without craving carrot cake and ramps in the same way that i feel the need to make donuts every time i watch bojack. 

the town co-op went out of business over the weekend. it makes me blue every time i think of it but i can’t say we didn’t see it coming. bagel sunday was part of a last effort to try and save it, and while it was fun and successful, it wasn’t enough to save the co-op. i’m hoping to find another space for bagel sunday but for now eggboy and i are helping the board and members figure out what comes next for the organization. the good thing is that just because the grocery store is out of business, it doesn’t mean that the membership has disbanded, so the community is still there and a lot of the members are hoping to create a new space. i’d be so happy if i could still get their #2 sandwich (hold the sprouts) and just generally have a cute downtown hang with cool friendly people. 

also until yesterday i was a little nervous about how i was going to get my ramp fix next spring since the co-op wouldn’t be there to order them for me, but then eggboy got a cryptic text from sheila and dave with a picture of freshly picked ramps. we think it’s from somewhere in north dakota, but eggboy’s too afraid to ask out of fear that they won’t want to disclose their secret stash (*cue the eye roll of the week*).

so anyway i don’t have a good segue to this but i have to tell you about this tiramisu. by definition, i’m not a tiramisu person as i have a very strict liquid intake schedule that goes as follows:

morning-12pm: coffee, as much as i can drink within that time period

12pm-5pm: green tea, 1-2 mugs

5pm-bedtime: booze, these days it’s 1/2 a glass of wine sunday-thursday, and then friday and saturday double that, maybe

because tiramisu is drenched in coffee, and because i’ve just never really been moved by the flavors of it, i have never ever ordered it at a restaurant. it feels outdated and not worth the calories. and let’s go broader here: while i’m always curious about restaurant dessert menus in the name of research and inspiration, it’s extraordinarily rare that i get to dessert and think aww shucks, i should have eaten less schnitzel so that i could have saved room for this quenelle of gelato with crunchies on it. while i prefer making sweet things, i definitely prefer eating savory things. 

all of this was shattered when we were at nosh berlin in march and ate this here rosewater cardamom tiramisu at a pop-up shabbat meal cooked by sophie and xenia von oswald. sophie and xenia are german iranian sisters who grew up in australia and now live in berlin, and they made a persian feast that was one course after another of food i want to eat again and again and again. it included a very saffrony tahdig and dreamy short ribs and a perfectly acidic tabbouleh. oh i just couldn’t stop with that tahdig, it was insane. and then when this tiramisu came i thought, oh i’ll just have a bite of eggboy’s because i was so full on short ribs and tahdig, but that was the wrong thing to think because after one bite i just wanted to cry about how good it was. it was all of my favorite flavors, wrapped up into a pile of velvety fluff. light but luxurious, it was perfect after such a huge great meal. actually it was perfect, period. suddenly it was the tiramisu that made me love tiramisu and the inspiration alone was my favorite souvenir from that week in berlin.

luckily i didn’t have to blindly claw my away around my first tiramisu when i got home because sophie and xenia shared their recipe with me, yay!!! oh it’s so good and not too hard to make. and it's a perfect dessert if you need something to prepare in advance. here are some notes from my inaugural tiramisu experience:

-i was not successful the first time around because i tried pasteurizing macaroni’s eggs since sometimes they’re often a bit dirty and i get so paranoid that if the outside of the shell accidentally touches the insides when i’m cracking it that i’ll get salmonella. it turns out i suck at pasteurizing. so after i learned that i went out and bought pasteurized eggs since this recipe has raw egg. 

-i made homemade ladyfingers for this! i used the recipe from luisa’s book and ended up using the whole batch of about 60 in this since they were much smaller than the store-bought kind.

-i didn’t have vanilla liqueur so i subbed vanilla extract and used 1 tb in the tea and 2 tsp in the yolk mixture.

-since my rosewater is super strong, i started by just adding a teaspoon and then added more bit by bit.

thank you sophia and xenia for sharing this recipe!!! berlin friends, go check out their events!

saffron, cardamom, and rosewater tiramisu

serves 6

By Sophie & Xenia von Oswald AKA Rocket & Basil

ingredients

300 ml VERY STRONG Earl Grey Tea

2 tb simple syrup

4 tb vanilla liqueur

6 large eggs 

150 g caster sugar

500 g mascarpone

A healthy pinch of Saffron 

1 tb rose water

10-15 ladyfingers

1 tsp ground cardamom

rose petals and pistachios, for serving 

clues

First, make the tea, allowing it to brew for at least 15-20 Minutes [using about 4 tea bags]. You want it to have a really strong earl grey flavor, almost to the point of being bitter. Sweeten with simple sugar syrup and 2 tablespoons of the vanilla liqueur, then allow to cool.

Make saffron essence: Use a mortar and pestle to grind the saffron (saving a few strands) into a super fine powder (adding a pinch of sugar to the mortar will help this along), pour over 50 ml of just boiled water and cool.

Separate the eggs, then whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until the eggs are frothy, creamy, doubled in size and all the sugar has dissolved.

With the mixer on slow speed, add the mascarpone and beat until smooth, then add 3-4 teaspoons of saffron essence (the color of the mixture should be a deep yellow), the remaining liqueur, rose water and saffron strands.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them gently into the egg yolk mixture, taking care to knock out as little air as possible. Check the mixture for sweetness and add more liqueur/saffron essence if needed.

To assemble: Dip the ladyfingers quickly in the cooled down tea, top with the cream and some ground cardamom. Repeat with a second layer, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours. We prefer to do overnight! Decorate with chopped pistachios and rose petals before serving! AND ENJOY!!

-yeh!

carrot, feta, and pistachio salad with orange blossom toss + a giveaway!

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hello from sunny los angeles where i am in town for a storm of fun things including filming with tastemade, talking about book stuff by the pool with alana (in 80 degree weather! omg), *researching* new restaurants like mh zh and kismet, hanging with extended family and my pops (!) who just happens to be in town too, and celebrating the launch of lily's book!! everyone together now: happy book birthday, lily!!!!

i am so excited that this day has come. lily and i have been talking about her book for two years now, and i still vividly remember the first time she told me about it. i was in los angeles to play an opera (it was this trip!) and after one of the shows lily and alana and i were standing outside at a bar downtown in a cloud of hot dog smell because alana had just bought a hot dog from a cart down the street. i buried myself in that smell because you know how i feel about hot dogs, and then from that cloud lily started listing all of the fresh herbs and edible flowers that her veggie-packed book was going to be organized by. there would be a mint chapter and a thyme chapter, and of course a whole section on roses. my mind went to salads but my nose was still on hot dogs and it created this perfectly wrong full-sensory moment that played out as if the meat scent accidentally got placed on the basil scratch and sniff and i was really, totally into it. 

at the time i was knee-deep in the planning stages of molly on the range, so it was natural that lily and i fell into roles as each other's deadline jazz freakout buddies, or maybe "book bridesmaid" is a more graceful term. (note to everyone writing a book: find a book bridesmaid or two because writing a book is way more labor intensive and freakout-prone than planning a wedding.) i was always so grateful to have a friend going through the same crazy book wildness that i was and i can't imagine going through it again without a friend like lil! now it's her turn to launch her book out into the universe and i am so happy that you'll all get to experience it. the whole situation offers this vibrant colorful approach to fresh things and it'll push you beyond your boundaries in the realm of edible flowers. some of the ingredients, like spirulina or rose petals, might be new to your kitchen, but the techniques are approachable and the world that lily creates within this book is so warm and encouraging.

so get this book. it’s filled with feel-good food and homemade body products that shows mother nature at her best. when you get it you first have to make the salad that eggboy and i have at least once a week, the greek salad with cumin-fried chickpeas and tahini mint dressing.

then you have to do the coconut mint scrub thing. (especially if a neighborhood bird accidentally introduced mint into your garden and now you have a garden of mint.) 

then make the jasmine ice cream that alana is posting about this week, which i’m eating right this very second. 

then you have to throw a hummus night and include this crisp refreshing carrot salad in the lineup. i have done this multiple times! i love having carrots in my salatim repertoire because they add color and starchiness without too much weight. and if you luck out and find rainbow carrots, this salad is a perfect way to showcase them. it’s heavy on the pistachios and feta, which makes me want to whip up a carrot cake with pistachios in it (and feta frosting? no that’d be gross), and it's in the orange blossom chapter, which is a chapter i could cook through five million times before having to buy another bottle of orange blossom water. i am so sensitive to it, i find i only need the teensiest bit to get the full effect. so typically when i make this salad, i start with 1/2 teaspoon of orange blossom water in the toss and then work my way up little by little, as if i were working with rosewater. i’ve also made huge batches of this salad for large groups of people using the shredder attachment on my food processor instead of a peeler to shave them. you can make a lot of it and prepare it a day in advance and it'll stay zingy and fresh. (if you do that, add the fresh mint right before serving though so it stays bright.) 

alright enough about salads, there's a rumor that lily made 36 gallons of cocktails for her launch party tonight so i am going to go drink them all. bye! 

carrot, feta, and pistachio salad with orange blossom toss

serves 4-6

from lily diamond's KALE & CARAMEL: Recipes for Body, Heart, and Table

ingredients

for the orange blossom toss:

2 tb olive oil

3 tb red wine vinegar

1 1/2 tsp orange blossom water

2 tsp honey

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, plus more for garnish

1/4 tsp sea salt

 

for the salad:

10 carrots, washed and tops trimmed and removed

1 c coarsely chopped fresh mint leaves, plus more for garnish

2/3 c chopped toasted pistachio nuts

2/3 c crumbled feta cheese

clues

make the orange blossom toss: combine the oil, vinegar, orange blossom water, honey, cumin, cardamom, the 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes and the salt in a jar, seal, and shake to blend. alternately, whisk the ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

make the salad: use a vegetable peeler, mandoline, or spiralizer to slice the carrots into long, thin strips. finely chop a handful of carrot tops (resulting in about 1/4 cup). place the carrot strips and carrot tops in a large salad bowl.

add the mint and pistachios, and pour the dressing over all. toss to combine. gently fold in the feta. top with mint and extra red pepper flakes, if you want an additional kick of spice.

-yeh!

update: this giveaway is now closed. 5/8/2017

p.s. i have one copy of KALE & CARAMEL: Recipes for Body, Heart, and Table to give away! leave a comment telling me about your favorite salad to enter! open to residents of the continental u.s.

rose rose cake

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We had our first Bagel Sunday at Amazing Grains this weekend!! Robert, one of Grand Forks’ resident bagel experts came in and we spent the weekend making plain and onion bagels. He hadn’t made bagels in 19 years and I hadn’t made bagels in, well, probably 19 years too, so we hacked our way through our first couple of batches and they miraculously turned out so deliciously dense and doughy, just the way I like them. I was so pleased! We used Robert’s recipe that he used when he owned his bagel shop in boise. It doesn’t have barley malt in it, just a nice amount of brown sugar, and we made them so pleasantly plump. (I have never been bound to my bagels having a well-defined hole, is that ok??) We offered three basic options: salmon and cream cheese, egg and cheese, and just cream cheese, and sold out in an hour and a half!! It was so much fun. Sundays are my new favorite. In future weeks I’d like to do pizza bagels, fancy avocado toast bagels, maybe even bagel dogs. But first I really need to improve my bagel rolling skills because mine came out bumpy and lumpy. 

After Bagel Sunday we got a snowstorm and it was so cozy inside. I made a big sunday supper of tahdig (my first try!) and the fava bean meatball dish from Jerusalem, which I loved except for the unshelled fava bean part. I still have a bunch of favas left though so I think I’ll put some on a pizza and then make ful with the rest.

When I wasn't shelling fava beans or rolling bagels these past few days, I was practicing my buttercream roses. Part of me thinks I should just stick to using marzipan since my clumsy hands can handle that so much more easily than buttercream, but I’ve found that once I kind of get into the rhythm of things, I can churn out buttercream roses way faster than marzipan roses (even if they are a little rustic... but that’s why I’m practicing).

And I’ll indeed need to up my speed because I am planning to cover enough cake for 400 million people with buttercream roses for Eggsister’s wedding in July. That's the whole reason I'm on this buttercream rose kick! The idea came after she decided that all of the bridesmaids and eggboy (the man of honor) would wear something flowery. I thought that with a floral theme, a whole table of floral-inspired cakes would be appropriate. So over the next few months I plan to: figure out recipes for a hibiscus cake, an orange blossom carrot cake, a chocolate lavender cake, and any other flowery cakes that eggsister and eggsisterfiancé want (got any suggestions??), and then also improve my buttercream roses and succulents. I tackled this vanilla rose cake first since rose is a flavor I’ve been comfortable with ever since I realized that you only need the teensiest bit of rosewater to have a great effect. 

I watched a bazillion video tutorials on how to make buttercream roses and also looked at instagram accounts like brooklyn floral delight. I figured out a few things:

-American buttercream probably isn’t the best for this since it can get a little bit flimsy. I’m including the recipe for it here since it’s my go-to buttercream when frosting cakes and if you’re just doing a basic frosting job for this, it does the trick, is easy to make, and is tasty. I haven’t yet experimented much with Italian buttercream but that’s what I’m going to use for my next rose practice session.

-It’s important to get one of these thingies and a few of the proper tips (and I’ve been using couplers so that I can switch the tips easily between colors). 

-I found that it was easiest to pipe the roses onto a little square of parchment (stick the parchment onto the metal thingy with a blob of frosting) and then transfer the parchment with the rose on it to a sheet pan. Freeze or refrigerate the sheet pan until the roses are firmed up and then pick em up with your hands, peel off the parchment, and just plop them right down onto your cake. From there you can fill in any empty spaces or clean up the edges with any reserved frosting in your piping bags. One pan of roses made enough to fill up this whole sheet cake, so I’m thinking that I’ll want to pipe about six full pans of roses in preparation for eggsisterwedding. I’m hoping that by that time I’ll be able to bang em all out the day before and then hold on to the extra frosting that’s still in the piping bags at room temperature so that I can fill in any holes the morning of the wedding. I’ll plan to bake the cakes three days out, frost them with a base layer two days out, do the roses the day before, assemble the morning of, and then party my tuchus off. 

-Best not to watch Bojack or anything else that is funny while you’re piping because laughing leads to ruffled petals. Which is fine if you’re going for that look, but I have to get a handle on clean petals before I can start taking artistic liberties.

Alright, gotta go make spätzle! My second rose practice session is in a few weeks, I’ll report back.

Here's a rosewater cake that's got the body of a vanilla cardamom cake but the sparkle and shimmer that only a drop of rosewater can add:

rose rose cake

makes one 9 x 13" cake

ingredients

for the cake:

1 3/4 c sugar

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

2 large eggs

1 c buttermilk

1/2 c flavorless oil, like canola

1 tb vanilla extract

1/2 tsp rosewater

1/2 tsp almond extract

3/4 c water

 

for the frosting:

1 c unsalted butter, softened

3 c powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

a couple of drops of rosewater

a pinch of kosher salt

2 tb heavy cream

clues

for the cake:

preheat the oven to 350ºf. line a 9 x 13" baking pan with parchment and set aside.

in a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cardamom. in a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla extract, rosewater, almond extract, and water.

whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. pour batter into the prepared cake pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at 35 minutes.

let the cake cool in the pan before frosting.

for the frosting:

in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add the butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, rosewater, and salt and mix until combined. mix in the heavy cream.

frost as desired! you certainly don't need to cover the whole darn thing in roses, but if you'd like to, see notes above and then here are a few reference videos: 

video 1

video 2

video 3

video 4

-yeh!

mint chocolate chip cookies

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all of my dreams right now are filled with mayonnaise and salami sandwiches on brioche and pizza corner pizza at judy’s tavern and chicken pot pies, and no amount of butter fried matzo and gruyere sandwiches will fix this. what are the rules about it being sundown *somewhere*? can i have chametz if it’s sundown in australia right now? can i crawl into a bed made of steamed bun and donut???

*googles images of bagels*

on the bright side, i have fallen in major wuv with this matzo chilaquiles recipe and am planning to make it with flour tortillas after today. also fargo passover was a great success and i got down with some serious shakshuka this weekend because my friends san fermin stopped by on the way from their show in minneapolis to their show in winnipeg. it was so silly and great seeing them romp around on the farm and i feel like such a mom but they’ve definitely all gotten taller, or i’ve shrank. they gave me a cassette (a cassette!) of their side project, stereo trash, which according to them is supposed to be pretty bad, but eggboy and i listened to it in our buick on the way to drink cider with sheila and dave and it brought us both back to an alternate high school reality where we’re kind of punk-ish and too cool to care about anything, i dunno, i was into it.

speaking of eggboy, he’s really been smelling like spring lately (sweat + dirt) so spring planting should begin here any day now. it was supposed to begin yesterday but there’s rain in the forecast so he’s been putzing around the shop and driving tractors around the yard and coming in for chilaquiles and jelly beans every few hours. maybe we’ll get to see beauty and the beast before planting starts, that or donnie darko. we meant to watch donnie darko on easter because of the easter bunny appearance in it but it turns out it's not on netflix or amazon prime or anywhere (?) can someone loan me the dvd?

not only will i be ending passover tonight with salami, brioche, pizza, pie, banh mi, bagels, and/or donuts, but i’ll also be engaging in these fresh mint infused chocolate chip cookies from andrea’s delightful new book, dishing up the dirt. i love this book! it has this great approach to seasonal cooking that is refreshingly honest, unfussy, and down-to-earth, and andrea’s descriptions of farm life are so beautiful and timeless that they make me want to actually get in the fields and get all dirty and stuff. bonus: so many of the recipes are heavy on the tahini, yay! 

these cookies are basically a really fantastic soft chewy chocolate chip cookie that remind me of the cookies from my junior high cafeteria (which is a really good thing), and they’ve been infused with mint! you know how i feel about chocolate and mint. the extra step of infusing butter with mint makes your kitchen smell sooo good and it eliminates the need to wait for your butter to soften so it is a big win in the world of chocolate chip cookies. they’re the type of thing that you can scoop into balls, freeze, and bake one-by-one as needed. and next time i think i’m going to try infusing them rosemary! that would be good, right??

mint chocolate chip cookies

makes about 12 large cookies

from dishing up the dirt by andrea bemis
 

ingredients

1/2 c (1 stick) good-quallity unsalted butter, chopped into small pieces

1/2 c firmly packed fresh mint, roughly chopped

1/2 c firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

1 egg, at room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

heaping 1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips, plus additional for topping cookies

clues

place the butter and mint in a small saucepan over medium heat. melt the butter, swirling the pan occasionally. the butter will foam and froth, then crackle a bit as it cooks. a few brown bits may form, and that's totally fine. once the mint is fragrant (after 2 to 3 minutes), set the mixture aside to cool for 30 minutes (you don't want it to solidify, just to cool down and let the mint infuse the butter). strain the butter through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. use a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to press into the mint leaves to extract any juices.

in a large bowl, beat together the butter and both sugar until the mixture is completely smooth and creamy, 3 to 5 minutes. add the egg and vanilla, beat for 1 minute longer.

in another large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, scraping down the bowl as needed. fold in the chocolate chips and continue to mix until well incorporated.

scoop the dough into a ball; place it on a piece of parchment paper, wax paper, or plastic wrap; and flatten it slightly into a thick disk. cover and refrigerate it for 1 hour. about 15 minutes before you're ready to begin baking, place racks in the center and upper third of your oven. preheat the oven to 350ºf and line two baking sheets with parchment.

use a scant 1/4-cup size scoop to form the dough into mounds on the prepared baking sheets, placing no more than 4 cookies per sheet. leave about 3 inches between each cookie; they'll spread while they bake.

top each cookie with a few extra chocolate chips and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until they're golden and lightly brown on the bottom. let the cookies cool for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack. let one baking sheet cool to room temperature before reloading with the remainder of the dough.

store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days or freeze them for up to a couple of months.

-yeh!