blog — molly yeh

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orange blossom almond cake

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by the time that she's old enough to date i think i'll be so far removed from junior high drama that any advice that i may be able to offer my little sister would be completely unqualified and terrible. same for anything pertaining to fashion and applying eye shadow. but as her trusty middle older sister, i can definitely educate her on the value of sprinkle tweezers and the proper fluffiness of a cake batter. and if her enthusiasm now for baking (and—get this, cleaning up) is any indication of her future, i think that sprinkle tweezers will take her much further than eyebrow tweezers.

all of her birthday and holiday presents for the past few years have been baking centric: cake in a crate boxes, decorating classes with alekka (including one all about buttercream roses!!) and this year i was gonna go for the big piping set but apparently stoopie beat me to it. last week she did baking camp!

when i was her age i was into my tamagotchi flock and doing math, i thought i wanted to be a math teacher when i grew up. now i practically have to use a calculator to compute how many bagels a double batch of 12 will yield. so i realize that the chances are not unlikely that mia will probably get serious about a million other things before she grows up but i do selfishly have this fantasy that she’ll turn into an ivenoven or bk floral delight so the tables can turn and i can go visit her for buttercream flower advice. 

speaking of that, i don’t know what i’m doing on my computer right now, i should really be doing some crumb coats for the eggsister wedding. two days until show time!!!! i just really really wanted to show you these pictures and this cake before the big day! mia came for a visit a couple of weeks ago and, like the rest of our family, has a strong pull toward almond things (yass!!) so we made this almond cake that’s based on the pistachio cake from molly on the range. to keep with eggsister’s floral theme we added a tiny splash of orange blossom water that isn’t easy to detect on its own but it adds a complexity that’s just slightly bitter and fancy. mia chose all of the buttercream colors out of my new fun nifty fifty set. at first i was horrified at the mix of neon and pastel colors that she chose but i love how they turned out! and i enjoyed playing with colors that i otherwise wouldn’t have used. chantell and brett came to take some photos and mia brought out all of her sia-inspired hair bows to choose from. don't be fooled by our very serious concentration faces, it was the best day!!!! 

a couple of notes on this cake: it is so dense and packed full of nuts that it functions best as a one-layer cake (its original form is a loaf, so feel free to go that route if you'd like). it will look super ugly and like a meteor has crashed on top when it comes out of the oven but flip it over and it will be nice and smooth and have a slight dip in the center, which is best for holding a pool of glaze. i’ve included some brief buttercream rose directions below, one of which is to watch a million instagram and youtube videos, and at my current skill level that’s the best advice i can offer. i know i said i was going to try german buttercream this time but we ate all the eggs. oops. 

orange blossom almond cake

makes one 9" cake

Ingredients

2 c (224g) almond flour
1/2 c (56g) all-purpose flour or gluten free all-purpose flour with 1/4 tsp xantham gum
1 tsp kosher salt
1 c (225g) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 c (300g) sugar
4 large eggs
zest of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 tsp almond extract
3/4 tsp orange blossom water

For decorating

Powdered sugar glaze (a couple cups powdered sugar mixed with milk, cream, or water until creamy and spreadable)
Buttercream roses

Clues

Preheat oven to 350ºf. Grease and line the bottom of a 9” round cake pan and set it aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, all-purpose flour, and salt and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar for a few minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each, and then add the lemon zest, almond extract, and orange blossom water. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients and mix to combine. Scrape into pan and bake until browned on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the edges are just slightly pulling in from the pan. begin checking for doneness at 55 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

To decorate, pour the glaze over the top of the cake. Watch a million instagram and youtube videos for how to pipe buttercream roses. Pipe them onto little parchment squares and place them on a sheet pan. Freeze the sheet pan for about 15 minutes or until the frosting is firm, and then peel them off the parchment and stick them on the cake. Fill in any spaces with buttercream leaves and sprinkles, if desired.

 

-yeh!

all photos by chantell and brett quernemoen!

apron by enrich and endure! 

here are some more buttercream rose posts: 

wedding photos

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last weekend i came home to a full bottle of our wedding champagne sitting on the counter and it was covered in dirt. it had been hiding in a bush since our wedding and eggdad had just dug it out as if it were some three-month long super awesome afikoman. yeah, go eggdad! i wonder what other kind of surprises we'll find leftover from the wedding. a stash of sprinkles? a stray bouquet? a small sriracha chicken pie?

the champagne on our counter was a reminder that it had been almost an entire two days since i went through our wedding photos, and i decided that i should probably do it again, with ice cream and chocolate tahini. i thought i'd be able to condense them down to fit into one post, but i could probably do an entire post on conga line photos alone, so for this one, i'm focusing on our group photos and the ceremony. 

our ceremony was short and to-the-point. we chose music that we loved, had one hell of an officiant (brother-in-law john!), and decided to sign our contract during the ceremony so that by the time that we smooched and mazel tov-ed, it was all official. 

here are some fun details, if you like wedding-y things and stuff:

dress // here it is! i got it at the wedding shoppe in st. paul.

eggboy outfit // "it's a wooly thing from nordstrom," is all that eggboy remembers. i got him a tie at macy's. he bought his shoes a long time ago at a market in china. 

rings // they came from sunday owl, an etsy shop that's owned by the sweetest human ever.

jewelry // all vintage, from mum and grandma. the crab brooch was given to my grandma by her mom when she moved here from china!

bridesmaids' dresses // i told them our wedding colors were chocolate, crumb cookie, and rosemary, and that they should find something that vaguely matched those and sparklies are a plus. they rolled in looking like the snazzy beautiful badasses that they are. and shoutouts to eggsister for securing those fur shawls from a costume department.

ceremony venue // the ceremony took place in what we call "the old shop." it's the oldest building on our farm and until the wedding, it was used for storage. and soon it will be used for my cake house. we hung a zillion feet of garland, lit some candles, and let the natural light shine through the windows.

ceremony music // i walked down the aisle to the fugue from bach's c major partita, played brilliantly by our very good friend sam. (i don't think i'll ever again be able to listen to that without tearing up.) pops whipped out his clarinet for the processional, an arrangement of the second minuet from mozart's gran partita. i truly could not have asked for more. 

officiant // brother-in-law john got ordained on the internet and made everyone in the room cry, it was perfect. he even wore fur because i told him to look game of thrones chic.

flower girl // sister mia was not our flower girl, but our rosemary girl! i made her a felt crown because it's not a hipster wedding without a felt crown.

blankets // mum and i picked out blankets and leather labels and then eggmum sewed em all on. it was our peace offering to those guests who had flown to north dakota from california and other warmer places during the dead of winter.

huppa // eggboy made it using trees from our yard!

signs // eggsister painted them using wood from around the farm.

flowers // ok, we had the prettiest wildflowers in our garden last summer and we thought and thought about how we could build a greenhouse to grow flowers for our wedding and then make our bouquets. sometime between the fifth and sixth time that we "decided to elope," i stopped into all seasons to order some bouquets. my bouquet got some extra love when stoop gave me a piece of lace from her wedding dress to pin onto it.

boutonnieres // my bridesmaids made them with rosemary and burlap! and eggboy's got a snipping of our succulent. 

sprinkles // we handed out packets of rainbow sprinkles for guests to throw at us after we smooched, because why throw rice when you could throw sprinkles?????

-yeh!

all photos by chantell ziegler!

we're married!!!!!!!!!!

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the big fat snow flakes that fell from the sky,

the cake with our smiling eggs, a marzipan heart, halva, and gold,

my new family, 

my old one,

the lace from stoopie's wedding dress tied to my bouquet with a bracelet from mia,

a crab brooch from china and a cuff from mum's mum as my something blue,

the sound of the fugue as we walked down the aisle through a sea of love and rosemary, to eggboy with his egg tears. 

john's perfect speech, the cell phone soundtrack to our vows, the smooches, the sprinkles, the shawls that kept my bridesmaids warm,

eating all of the challah and prosciutto for the buffer for all of the aquavit that fueled the chorus line, the conga line, the hora, and cyndi lauper sing along,

the perfectly timed dinner bell, the late night grilled cheese covered in tons and tons of ketchup, the later night papa john's soaked in garlic butter, the smiley faces and the dancing, the perfect cake, the perfect pies, the perfect soup, the big big hugs,

and my husband.

hehehe.

my husband.

-yeh! (hagen!)

thank you to our amazing photographers, chantell and brett for these photos!!! more photos to come :)

lefse!

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the other day, i was at the town boutique trying on a sprinkle sweater when britney spears started singing from my phone and, mostly as a reaction to my embarrassment and wanting that ringtone to stop (eggboy, please change my ringtone, ok thanks!!!), i picked it up immediately. on the other end was his jolliness sam sifton, who said something to effect of, hey! i was thinking i'd come over to make some lefse! and i thought holy poopcakes!

what followed was one of the most memorable weeks of my life, but only after i could annoy poor miss ethel a few times because contrary to what you'd think based on her perfect performance on camera, she had been adamant about not even being in the presence of a reporter. and i was a pushy patty.

(it all worked out in the end because that sam can really charm.)

for a few days, we covered ourselves in flour and rolled in potato fields and it was all so unreal because when i lived in new york, i'd sit at my little desk and count the seconds until sam's restaurant reviews would come online, and then i'd savor every last word. i may have moved on to marilyn's turf, but sam will always be one of my favorites :) 

i loved having him and the amazing sweet video crew from the times here, they were my first visitors from brooklyn! after our shoot, we celebrated with venison and hotdish, and then eggboy and eggdad took the crew on a workshop tour. they got a little welding lesson and at some point i think sam drove a tractor, which was practice for when we hire him for beet harvest. hehe.

anywho, i've received the sweetest messages from so many of you guys about the video and i want to hug all of you!! if you haven't seen it, here it is! the recipe for ethel's lefse is here. happy lefse season, everyone!!

-yeh!

some of these photos were taken by one of the wonderful crew members, eric moran. check out his site, his photos are amazing!!!!!