Wisdomkeepers, Plus The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe On The Internet

I dare you to make these and then argue with the title of this blog.

If you are just here for the cookie (and I don’t blame you), you can find the recipe on Smitten Kitchen. Everyone knows the best chocolate chip cookies are crispy and chewy, and that’s exactly what I searched for and exactly what I got.

Of course, these use my gluten-free flour blend, and I used a mix of regular and mini semisweet chips. Also, because I am sheltering in place on my own, I baked half of the batch only. The rest I scooped into individual cookies with an ice cream scoop and am freezing. Pop a cookie onto a baking sheet and bake it up whenever.

For those of you who are here for cookies and the rest of the blog, keep going.

Prompted by our reading of Michael Pollan’s book, I have started re-reading a book by William Powers called 12 x 12: A One-Room Cabin Off The Grid And Beyond The American Dream. It starts with this quote by Franz Kafka:

“You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait. You need not even wait, just learn to become quiet and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

Followed by this from Paul Éluard: “There is another world, but it is in this one.”

If ever there were a book for our time, it is this one.

We are all (most) of us, sitting, and some of us (like me, now) solitary. I am waiting, I guess, not exactly solitary, and there might be the problem. With our shithead of a president failing to lead (or demonstrate his ability to be anything but the inept moron and terrible person he is), infections and deaths rising in what I believe are falsely deflated numbers, and people feeling the sting of isolation for two weeks (official two weeks isn’t even close here in Maryland – we have only been under stay-at-home orders since March 30), we are still filling up our time and mental space with what we used to do, only now it’s online.

Certainly, we mourn the freedom of movement we used to have, but whenever you get too down in the mouth about that, imagine you are in prison right now, and your prison has just been issued stay-at-home orders for two weeks, and your home is an 8×10 cell that you share with another person who is not of your choosing.

But I digress.

The point is (and for the chocolate chip cookie people who stayed, I know. Sometimes it takes a minute to get to the point. But I usually make it there eventually), once we come out of this, if we have not gotten quiet, and still, and solitary, what will we come out to?

I think one positive part of this (if one could spin anything to be positive) is that the terrible, anti-functional parts of life in the U.S. have been laid bare. Too many people are one paycheck away from disaster.

Consider the fact that many major companies have just decided to stop paying their rent but very few landlords will voluntarily allow tenants to stop paying rent. Sure, eviction proceedings have been banned in some cities, but that doesn’t mean a landlord cannot report this to your creditors, and evictions are not banned for many small businesses.

Consider also the fact that the nation’s public school system had no real plan for educating the nearly 51 million kids they serve outside of the brick-and-mortar building, an estimated 14% of whom require special education services.

Our hospitals are not equipped for large-scale disasters. Our healthcare system essentially ensures that the poor and the brown among us will die from lack of care or be destitute following the minimal care they receive.

The entire country feels this lack – witness, among other things, the rabid clearing of all toilet paper from stores and the hoarding of everything from masks to hand sanitizer to, of all things, flour and yeast. It is a true thing that when our survival is threatened, grasping for things we can hold (e.g., toilet paper) provides us with a feeling of stability.

Someone on Instagram wrote that they thought rationing (as in World War II) would be better because then at least you would be guaranteed your carton of eggs.

We have no guidance, no leadership, no calls for coming together at the federal level (including the laughable federal “stimulus” package that bails out the few large businesses at the expense of the small and of individuals. And the people who pick our vegetables and toil in the fields? They are fucked.). In Baltimore, and in my neighborhood, there are community resources being made available for those who are suffering, and I have seen beautiful examples of people helping each other.

But on the national level, Congress and the Shithead-in-Chief are pointing fingers and worrying about whose fault it is, still propping up big corporations that can absorb the shock better than the little guy, and probably scanning the globe for a war that might pull us out of what looks to be headed in the direction of the Great Depression, part deux.

If we think we can emerge from this pandemic the same as we went in, we are mistaken. We cannot compare this pandemic to the flu in the sense that most of the world had no idea the rest of the world had the flu, too. The name “Spanish flu” was coined by Spain because they thought they were the only ones who had it. With the internet, we are so globally intertwined that it is impossible to ignore the shuddering halt to which we have come and the consequences. I don’t think as many people in the U.S. have ever thought about the term “supply chain” as much in the history of this country.

I don’t want to be the same. I want our whole country to not just stop and be quiet but to listen and be still, to evaluate which parts of the old system are good and valuable and which parts we can discard like so much rubbish.

I think it’s obvious that we have reached late-stage capitalism and that center cannot hold. Note: if you click no other links in this post, click the late-stage capitalism one. Jesus.

I think it’s also obvious that our healthcare system is unutterably broken. We have been looking at this pandemic not as a public health issue with the potential to ravage the country but instead as a drain on resources, the same drain that occurs when uninsured people are forced to avoid going to the doctor until they end up in the emergency room. Healthcare is the privilege of the wealthy; this was clearly illustrated for me when Idris Elba reported receiving a COVID test in the earliest days of the pandemic because he had been in contact with a person who tested positive.

Should he have gotten a test? Of course. But so should every other person who needs one and who does not have access to one. If you are a skeptic, read this story about West Virginia keeping their numbers at zero.

It’s obvious, too, that we are currently functioning better as individual states than as a country “governed” by a president who believes that states should bid against each other for medical supplies and COVID tests. Don’t worry, though: he fucks models. Phew.

Pause here to give props to Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland (I am a raging liberal Democrat who did not vote for him) who saw this coming in January and took some steps to get ready. Not enough, but more than the federal government who knew for sure it was coming and ignored it.

WE CANNOT BE THE SAME COUNTRY COMING OUT OF THIS.

We cannot allow the same inequity to persist. We cannot choose corporations over people. We cannot allow our elected representatives on both sides of the aisle to get away with lip service and pandering this election year.

Personally, I think the changes we need to make to emerge better from this pandemic are too sweeping and too hard for the small-minded people in power to comprehend. States seem to be doing a better job on their own (most of them, except for these nine states, plus Georgia).

I despair of any resolution to this. We are too big to not fail, it seems.

As I write this, I hear a peal of laughter from my neighbors down the street. They do still get together outside but no longer huddle in a close circle with their children ranging ’round. The chairs are there, the kids are out, but they are a studied six feet apart.

The wisdomkeepers might say that things are unfolding as they must – that this is part of the revelation (which, as my book points out, has a curious Latin root word that means “to veil.”

I feel like the world is actually rolling freely, unmasked, at our feet, if not in ecstasy but then certainly with wild abandon. If there is another world in this one, now is the time it will reveal itself, I think. Perhaps we are not quiet or still enough to notice yet. Perhaps we never will be.

Let Them Eat Cake

I cain’t quit you.

I was about to let this blog go. Not the name, you understand – just the process of writing a blog every month.

But then…cake.

You should know that cake is the world’s perfect food, or at least in a three-way (tie) with watermelon and pizza.

I love it the best and the most and will eat it every day if I can. I believe in the power of cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Perhaps most importantly for the purposes of this missive, I enjoy baking cakes for people. I like to see their faces when they open the box, and the whites of their eyes when they take their first bite.

That last little bit is creepy, but I mean it in the nicest way possible.

Additionally, if I made all of the cake I want to make/eat, the fit of my clothing would become problematic.

So, hello, you. Let me bake a cake for you.

I have updated my “Let Me Bake For You” page to list the offerings that are available.

Since I want baking to continue to be enjoyable, I won’t accept more orders than I can make with love (seriously. I know that sounds hokey or saccharine or whatever, but I mean it). If you want a cake, stake your claim early in the month and slap your money on the barrelhead (or the Venmo or PayPal – the 21st-century barrelhead).

If you want to give a cake to a person, I suppose I could whip you up a gift certificate for that person. Get in touch.

And if you want something other than a cake, get in touch. I could maybe work something out for you.

Oh, and hey. Share this post with a friend, using the buttons. I am off the Facebook but still use Instagram.

You can also take pix of your cakes and post on Instagram with my inventive hashtag: #charmcityedibles. That would not suck.

Back To Fall: Frangipane Tart With Bourbon Brown Sugar Peaches

pastry tart with peaches on a wooden cutting board
Peach and almond delicious.

August might just be the very best month of the summer.

I realize this is a blasphemous statement to place at the very top of September’s post, but bear with me.

There is a tart at the end of all of this.

For the second year in a row, Khristian and I have headed to Canada to spend a few weeks in the lovely province of New Brunswick, camping on a piece of raw land we purchased last year and gazing out at the creeping fog of the Bay of Fundy.

The Bay of Fundy is out there. Somewhere.

While this blog post was initially going to be titled, “How to build a camping platform without murdilating your partner,” I have mellowed somewhat, basted as I have been over the past two weeks in salt air and the chittering of squirrels.

No one was harmed in the making of this deck.

Coming home, and walking to the farmer’s market this morning, I realized that August is the best month of summer.

First, yes, it’s usually hotter than hell, but most people have their summer gear dialed in at this point and are capable of finding water or keeping cool. Many people head to the beach at this time (perfect time to avoid it, IMVHO), or just find some friends and a piece of shade to hang out in.

In short, by August, we are all used to the hellish weather and a little more relaxed about it. Sure, there’s still chatter on the topic but it’s less offended and more accepting, a sort of late summer resignation.

Next, by the time August rolls around, the frenetic new energy of the summer is chilled out. In June and July, everyone tries to do allofthethings, feels, in fact, COMPELLED to do them, but by August, much like that wild patch of overgrown, spindly, weighted down trio of tomato plants on your balcony and the overabundance of zucchini packed in ziploc baggies in your freezer, we have all given up. Sure, we still do someofthethings, but mostly it’s at a more leisurely pace. We are in our groove. Laid back.

It’s like we finally realize how long the days actually are in summer and just stop rushing around.

This more relaxed vibe is what all the commercials are actually talking about in April, looking towards summer. We just don’t get there until August. Add two eclipses and Mercury in retrograde during the entire month of July, and that’s some frantic shit right there. August is one big, fat exhale.

And then as August winds down? SCHOOL SUPPLIES.

Not back-to-school shopping, which sucks at any age, but school supplies. Fresh notebooks; new, full-to-the-brim ink pens; post-its; planners; and, if you’re lucky, a brand-new Trapper Keeper.

In college, the promise and possibility (and unfortunate expense) of new textbooks. I am probably the only person in history who didn’t mind the expense, but then again, I believe you can never spend too much on books.

August is the best. It leads into the productive energy of the fall in preparation for the hibernation of winter. This gentle seasonal slope makes me more motivated and often more creative – I do some of my best work in August and September. It’s like a reset.

I come back to the kitchen more energized, usually, and am baking with a ferocity that usually evaporates in mid-summer’s heat. Right now I am smelling the beginning notes of Frank’s Holy Bundt, unsurprisingly posted first on this blog on September 1st two years ago.

This time of the year the farmer’s markets are overflowing with abundance as well. Everything summer comes to a peak right now, perfect timing for canning, preserving, and otherwise storing away the easy bounty of summer against winter’s leaner feel.

Today I walked through Hampden in the sparkling sunshine, stopped at a neighborhood pear tree to see how things were going, and came away from the market with peaches, green beans, and a zucchini the size of my femur bone (put half in the current Holy Bundt and am freezing the other half for the next one).

The peaches. Man.

Everyone talks about South Carolina or Georgia peaches, but Maryland peaches kick their ass in a peach fistfight. They have more flavor and silkier flesh than their southern cousins, and the farm I bought from today is 30 miles from my back porch.

I ate one on the way home, and saved the others for this, my frangipane tart. Frangipane seems like a really complicated thing, mostly because its correct pronunciation eludes me, but that’s about it. It has a delicate almond flavor but still holds up like a more rustic dessert. The first time I made it with an apple butter caramel swirl on top I couldn’t cram it into my gaping maw fast enough. It wasn’t too sweet and had a tender, light crumb.

This time, some peaches and some bourbon and some lemon and some peach marmalade from Italy brighten the whole thing up.

You could also swap plums for the peaches and switch the bourbon to rum. Or use tart apples tossed in brown sugar, a squeeze of lemon, and some cinnamon. I’d like to try a banoffee version (bananas and toffee caramel), but that might be for the holidays.

Enjoy the last few days of summer.

Frangipane Tart With Bourbon Brown Sugar Peaches

Ingredients

Crust

½ cup whole toasted almonds

1 ¼ cups gluten-free all-purpose flour

¼ cup sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 stick chilled butter, cut into pieces

2 tablespoons ice water

Filling

1 ¼ cup whole almonds

¼  cup brown sugar, packed

6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature OR melted and cooled

1 large egg

1 egg white

1 capful vanilla extract (see Recipe Notes)

1 teaspoon bourbon

2 teaspoons lemon zest

2 big peaches (between a tennis ball and a softball size)

Glaze

¼ cup peach preserves

3 tablespoons bourbon

2 tablespoons brown sugar

½ teaspoon lemon juice

Method

Preheat oven to 375°.

Start with your crust. Pulse almonds in food processor until they are finely chopped. Add flour, sugar, and salt and process until almonds are ground into meal.

Pulse butter in until mixture resembles sand. Mix in enough water to form moist clumps. Once this happens, turn the dough directly into your tart pan and press into shape (see Recipe Notes for what to do if you use regular flour). Use a piece of plastic wrap to keep your hands clean and press dough evenly into the sides and bottom of the tart pan. The goal is an equal thickness all around, about 1/8”.

Cover tart pan and refrigerate at least two hours or overnight.

When you are ready to bake, place tart pan on baking sheet and poke several times with a fork. You can place a piece of parchment on top of the crust and fill the crust with blind baking beads or rice, which will prevent the edges of the tart from shrinking and which I usually forget to do.

Bake crust 10 minutes, popping any additional bubbles that arise with a toothpick if you have not filled your crust with the baking beads or rice. If you are using parchment, remove the parchment after 15 minutes to allow the bottom to cook.  Crust may take up to 20 minutes to become a pale golden color – be patient.

Cool tart while you make the filling.

Blend almonds in food processor until they break into smaller pieces. Add remaining sugar butter, eggs, extracts, bourbon, and lemon zest and continue to pulse until almonds are finely ground and ingredients are well mixed. Spread the filling in your crust.

Wash and slice the peaches into ½” slices (ish. No need to be precious. This is a rustic tart). Place peaches in a spiral pattern (or any pattern, really) into the top of the tart, pressing gently to make sure they stick into the filling. The filling should come up the sides of the peaches a little.

Bake tart on baking sheet until frangipane is puffed and golden, between 30 and 45 minutes.

While the tart bakes, prepare the glaze. Stir brown sugar, bourbon, and lemon juice in a small saucepan over medium heat until mixture just boils and sugar is completely dissolved (this happens quickly). Strain glaze into a bowl.

Transfer the tart to a cooling rack and brush the entire surface with the glaze.

When completely cool, release the tart from the pan and serve to much adoration. A little unsweetened whip cream (or with just a tiny splash of almond extract) is delicious on this. If you’re especially fancy, garnish with chopped fresh lemon balm.

Recipe Notes

  • I used McKenna bourbon in this recipe, a seriously underrated, easy drinking and mixing bourbon. It is young and cheap and thus smooth and sweeter, with notes of caramel and vanilla. It goes well with the flavors of this tart and costs less than $15 a bottle. Go get some.
  • If you use regular flour, do not place the crust directly in the pan; follow the typical crust recipe, which is to bring the dough together by turning it out of the food processor after you incorporate the water and kneading gently before forming it into a ball, wrapping it in plastic and chilling it at least two hours. Then, roll the dough out on a floured surface before placing into your tart pan and baking.
  • Prepare the crust a day ahead, chilling overnight in the ‘fridge and then baking the next day.
  • Tart can sit at room temperature for eight hours before serving, but you should plan to eat it on day one. The crust softens in the ‘fridge overnight, so you don’t get that snap the next day. Still delicious for breakfast.

The Choices We Make: Coconut Cherry Ice Cream With Toasted Almonds

Three dark red cherries top pink ice cream in a clear glass bowl sitting on a wooden board.
Couldn’t let summer pass without an ice cream recipe.

I was going to write this big long post on home, but what I really want to share with you this month is an easy, delicious ice cream recipe and a video from Willie Nelson’s newest album that makes me cry when I see it.

First, the video.

You are a cold soul if this doesn’t smack you in the feels.

My darling child took me to see Willie Nelson at Merriweather Post Pavilion in June as a Mother’s Day present, and good lord did I ever love it. He is slowing down, and he didn’t play as much or sing quite as well, but his is the voice of my childhood, a soft and gravelly and sweet recollection of moments of peace. I like that he is such a lover of horses and actually has a rescued wild herd of his own in Texas.

He opened his set with this video, and it immediately filled me up and made me want to move out west to watch the wild horses run and then maybe buy a little cheap land of my own and rescue all of them myself. And later when I came home and finally calmed down I started to think about how the choices we make in our lives are as much about letting something go as they are about choosing something. So when we decide we are going to be a firefighter we don’t get to be an astronaut.

We have to decide between two things we might most want to do because we are only all of us just humans and not able to split in two.

So I don’t get to go out west and buy land to rescue horses because I have chosen to buy some raw land in Canada and build a camping platform, then a shed, then maybe a little house with a deck that looks out into the thunderous waters of the Bay of Fundy.

Still, and even though I am in love with our little patch of grass, with its baby forest and population of bark-munching porcupines, I feel a deep tug in my heart towards horses, a connection that I have felt since I have known breath. I think it’s their wildness that moves me – the way they are pure instinct and beauty.

Perhaps I will have another life to surrender to that tug of wildness.

But in this life, this current one where my particular friend and I are trapped inside due to heat that is in the 110-degree range, a stifling, suffocating sweat bath of weather that may become what is normal for this time of year, I have made perhaps the most delicious ice cream to date (giving Spicy Sweet Corn and the one with the tamarind caramel a run for their money). It is simple and can easily be dairy-free if you like.

Also, I used an ice cream machine to churn (reluctantly because I hate my ice cream maker, but that’s another story. Currently taking recommendations if you have any.), but you could also just freeze it without churning and thaw slightly before serving. Easy and delicious.

Coconut Cherry Ice Cream With Toasted Almonds

Ingredients

2 cans of full-fat coconut milk (NOT coconut cream)

1/2 can sweetened condensed milk (or 1/2 cup sugar for vegan version)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups pitted fresh cherries (ish. Don’t get too precious about this amount)

1/2 cup almonds, chopped and toasted

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

Method

Place all ingredients except for almonds and coconut in a blender and blend until combined.

If you are going to churn with an ice cream maker, follow your manufacturer’s directions, adding the coconut and almonds in the last five minutes of churning.

If you are going to simply freeze, stir in coconut and almonds, and freeze until set. If you prefer, you can leave the coconut and almonds out for a couple of hours, and then stir them in before freezing completely. This will keep them more evenly dispersed in the ice cream (they will sink to the bottom while the ice cream is still liquid).

Fondant Fancies, Or How To Get Back On The Horse

This recipe inspired by the Great Canadian Baking Show.

I just watched The. Dumbest. Movie. about unicorns on Netflix.

Call it boredom. Call it curiosity. Call it straight-up avoidance, but I clicked “play” and watched the whole thing. There goes 90 minutes of my life I will never get back.

Part of my clicking “play” on a really stupid movie is me floundering about a little, trying to figure out whatthefuck is next. After a month off of social media and with a few important deadlines looming, deadlines that have nothing to do with mercenary writing and everything to do with my own personal creative practice, my brain and body just don’t really know which end is up. It’s like riding a horse backwards, a little. Possible, but ill-advised.

Adding to the mental fog, this week has been a wild ride in other important ways.

Started off by putting my stressed out kid on a plane to Paris for a month.

Then I picked up my dog’s ashes and pawprint, which sent me back into grief, not just for the loss of the dog but also for every bit of loss from the past decade and a half – a long series of just having something or someone I love ripped away on a regular basis. In no particular order: A baby. A houseful of belongings. A parent. A house. A school. A husband. A horse. More belongings. A dog.

It’s a lot to deal with on a random Tuesday.

So I baked some things. It doesn’t really matter why or how, but a month ago I committed to donating four dozen sweet things to a writing conference my friend organized for Baltimore City College, and the due date for those sweet things was this week.

Two of the four dozen were Fondant Fancies, fiddly little things that required several hours of baking and fussing over. In conjunction with the other two dozen sweet things (individual Chocolate Covered Cherry Cream Pies), this baking occupied enough time and mental space to get me to the end of the Tuesday of Loss Remembrance.

And then after I delivered them on Wednesday morning, I took the remaining dog for a five-mile walk. As we got back to the car, sweaty and thirsty, I felt an overwhelming sweep of gratitude, even among all of the Lost Things, that I could bake all day for a friend, and then go out on the first truly beautiful spring day and walk through the woods with my dog. It’s a privilege and a blessing that I do not take for granted.

If you are feeling the need for making something special or avoiding something or just want to distract yourself with something other than a really, really dumb movie, give these a try. I didn’t find them too technically challenging – just time and patience-intensive.

p.s. If you want the recipe for Chocolate Covered Cherry Cream Pies, comment below the recipe.

p.p.s. Oh, and hey, if you like what you read, think about subscribing to this blog. You get one email when I post – that’s it. No ads, nothing more.

Fondant Fancies(makes 25 pieces)

Ingredients

Cake

2 sticks very soft butter

225 grams sugar (about 1 cup)

4 room-temperature eggs

225 grams gluten-free all-purpose flour (about 1 1/2 cups)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

grated rind of one lemon

Buttercream and topping

1 stick very soft butter

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 jar seedless jam (your choice, but I used raspberry and you won’t use it all in this recipe, so get something you like)

1 tube marzipan paste (see Recipe Notes)

Powdered sugar for rolling

Two bags Wilton candy melts (see Recipe Notes)

1/2 cup coconut oil

Dark chocolate, chopped (optional, for decoration)

Equipment: parchment paper, 8″ square cake pan, cooling rack, rolling pin, ruler, two rimmed cookie sheets, piping bag, squeeze bottle.

Method

For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8″ square cake pan and line with parchment paper, then butter the paper, too. Set aside.

Place butter and sugar in a stand mixer and cream with a paddle (this paddle is the best – not a sponsored post!) until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing to combine thoroughly after each egg.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and grated lemon rind in a bowl and mix to combine. Add to butter mixture and mix to combine, scraping down the side of the bowl. Batter will be pretty thick – this is ok.

Tip batter into prepared tin and level the surface with an offset spatula.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the top is light brown and springy and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Do not open the oven while it’s baking or it will sink in the middle.

Cool in the pan for ten minutes and then cool completely on a rack. You can make the buttercream while you wait.

For the buttercream: Add softened butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract to the clean bowl of your stand mixer. Use the whip attachment to beat until light and fluffy. You want frosting that is completely smooth and easy to spread. If it seems stiff, add some milk, just a teaspoon at a time, and whip thoroughly in between additions.

When the cake is completely cool, cut it into two horizontal layers. Spread a thin layer of raspberry jam evenly on the bottom layer, then place the top layer back.

Spread an even layer of buttercream on the top of the cake only and place in the ‘fridge.

Note: You will have leftover buttercream. Place it between graham crackers. Eat all the time.

Dust the clean counter liberally with powdered sugar and roll your marzipan paste to an 8″ square that is 1 /16″ thick (or thereabouts).

Place the marzipan on top of the buttercream and press down very lightly, then chill for another ten to 15 minutes. Have a coffee. Check your email.

Once chilled, remove the cake and, using a ruler, cut squares that are 1 1/2″ by 1 1/2″. Try to keep your cuts straight and neat, and remove any stray crumbs to keep the sides clean.

Set on a cooling rack over a rimmed cookie sheet (like a jellyroll pan). Place in ‘fridge while you prepare the candy melts.

Melt the candy melts in and coconut oil in a saucepan (or in the microwave if you have one – I do not), then transfer to a squeeze bottle with a wide opening (I cut mine wider).

Remove the cakes from the ‘fridge, and carefully coat each square with candy melt mixture. Periodically transfer the cakes to another pan and scrape the candy melt mixture that has dribbled off into the pan under the cakes and put it back in the squeeze bottle (use a funnel).

Make sure each square is fully coated.

If you’d like, allow the candy melt mixture to set (not in the ‘fridge – on the counter is fine) before melting some dark chocolate, placing it in a piping bag with a tiny opening, and drizzling all fancy-like over the squares.

Pro-tip: You can make this cake over several days, and finished squares are delicious for about a week (although the cake is not as springy).

Recipe Notes

Marzipan paste can be homemade, but I wanted to control some of the variables and so used pre-made paste. It can be found in the baking aisle. I have made my own in the past, and it’s worth the effort if the marzipan is the star.

Technically, fondant fancies use something called pâte à glacer as a coating. This is very, very similar to Wilton candy melts, and candy melts are widely available and much, much cheaper. I used vibrant green candy melts, but I also experimented with Mary Berry’s suggestion to use powdered sugar thinned with milk and tinted with food coloring. MISTAKE. Thin, too sweet, and flavorless. The coconut oil added to the candy melts makes the glaze more supple and adds a delicious flavor that complements the lemon, raspberry, and vanilla. If you want a neutral flavor (no coconut) you could use vegetable oil instead of coconut.