Rainbow Cookies for Spring

Except for the extreme hassle, the high price, and the irritating over-enthusiasm your children will bring to this project, it's a perfect recipe. It's also the only thing I've ever made that really, REALLY impressed my husband. If we make the drive to buy these in the city, we still pay $2-3 each. This recipe makes a LOT of cookies, and they freeze well. They are dense, almond flavored bits of heaven that go well with black coffee. Mmm. 

The original recipe claims that the only special equipment you need to make this are 3 9"x13" cake pans, and I suppose that's true, but you will also need a pastry brush, 2 baking sheets, wax paper, an icing spreader, 3 bowls, and a mixer. I believe this is pushing the limits of home baking, but the results are worth it. This is a great cookie. 

The colors are supposed to me red, white, and green like the Italian flag, but since I made this the day before Easter I tried pink, green, and yellow. Still pretty. I found this recipe a few years ago on epicurious.com. 

Ingredients:
2 cups unsalted butter at room temperature
non-stick cooking spray or extra butter
6 large eggs, separated
1 and 1/3 cups sugar
12 ounces of chopped almond paste, chopped
2-3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon white flour (fussy!)
1 teaspoon red food coloring
1 teaspoon green food coloring
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup orange marmalade
about 1/2 pound semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

First some prep work: Line three 13x9x2" baking pans with aluminum foil, leaving an overhang. Spray it with non-stick cooking spray or grease it with extra butter and set it aside. 

Beat the egg whites in a mixer until soft peaks form, slowly add 1/3 cup sugar, and then beat again until stiff peaks form. Transfer it to a large bowl. Cover the egg whites and chill them in the refrigerator until later. 

Using the paddle attachment on your mixer, beat the almond paste and one cup of sugar on low speed until it's really well mixed together, about five minutes. While that's mixing, cube the butter. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and gradually add the two cups of butter. Beat it until it's fluffy, then beat in the yolks, then the flour and salt. 

Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold the refrigerated egg whites into the batter in two additions. This part will make your arms ache but lightens the batter to airy fluff. 

Next divide the batter as evenly as you can into three bowls. If you are making the traditional cookies, add a teaspoon of food coloring to one bowl, a teaspoon of green food coloring to another, and leave the third bowl plain. Mix the batter as thoroughly as you can so there are no streaks. 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Spread one bowl of batter into each prepared pan and smooth the tops. This will feel like such a joke and you will be sure there isn't enough batter, but do your best to just spread it as close to the edges as you can. 

Bake the cakes for roughly 10 minutes. Check them frequently toward the end. You want to take them out as soon as the center looks cooked but before the edges brown. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans. 

While the cakes are cooling, heat the 3/4 cup of marmalade in a small saucepan. Strain it to remove the orange peel. The marmalade will have to be warm to spread it. 

Use a pastry brush to spread half the marmalade over the green cake. Use the foil overhang to lift the plain layer out of the pan and invert it onto the green cake. Throw out the foil and spread the rest of the marmalade over the plain layer. Lift the red layer out of the pan, invert it onto the plain layer, and cover the cake with foil. 

Top the cake with a pan so that two of them are nesting with the cake between them. Weigh the pan down with some cans and refrigerate the whole thing for 4-24 hours. 

Something like what you see to the left...

Remove the cans, the top pan, and the foil. Invert the cake onto a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. 

Melt the chocolate over a double-boiler (ideal) or in the microwave in thirty second increments (realistic). Spread half of the chocolate over the cake in the thinnest layer you can and then put the whole thing in the freezer for ten minutes for the chocolate to harden. 

Cover the cake with waxed, paper, invert it onto another lined baking sheet, remove the wax paper and spread the remaining chocolate over the top. Put it in the freezer again for another ten minutes. 

You are finally ready to slice it!

Trim the edges and then slice it crosswise into 2" strips. 

Slice the 2" strips into 1" sections. 

You're done! You have rainbow cookies!

I try to freeze about half of them to bring out later.