Just like everyone else out there, I am trying to get a little bit creative in finding ways to pass time inside. And boy oh boy…did I find a day-sucking activity that I have to recommend.

After years of enjoying rainbow cookies - on holidays, as presents (thanks, Dad), and in those multi-cookie plates at parties, I finally got to make my own. (Side note: You always have to be aggressive in the fight to get one of the 4 or 5 rainbow cookies mixed into those cookie bunches - if you know you know.)

I was always interested in trying out this AllRecipes recipe - but knew it was one of those “I’m giving up my whole day for something that is destined for failure” projects. I mean the total prep/cook time is 10 HOURS and 30 MINUTES. That was almost enough for me to give up on my lifelong dream for homemade rainbow cookies, until time suddenly became quite unlimited.

I knew I needed some very specific ingredients to complete this endeavor - almond paste isn’t likely to be a part of your usual flour and sugar inventory. I didn’t even know apricot jelly was a thing, so obviously that wasn’t lying around the jellies and condiments section of the refrigerator (another part of the apartment that has been blessed by our unlimited amount of time inside). In addition, when we moved we decided we didn’t need a fancy KitchenAid mixer or a smaller hand mixer. I thought about making the move for a cute aqua KitchenAid hand mixer during the week, but couldn’t press “Buy Now” on this $30 splurge coming up to the baking weekend. This was mistake number one in which I will elaborate on several times throughout this blog.

We woke up on Saturday morning, with the grocery list ready to go. I paced the baking aisle for almond paste and food coloring, and found the literal last jar of apricot jelly in the jellies section (maybe someone else stole my bucket list baking idea - hopefully my blog comes first).

As I unpacked my groceries and decontaminated everything in sight - I was suddenly overcome with a confidence, thinking that this was only going to take a little while. Flour, sugar, butter and coloring - how could this possibly be a 10-hour gig. Present self is laughing at past self thinking it would be a 1-2-3 afternoon of cookie making.

BLAST-OFF

I put all my strength and sweat into breaking apart the almond paste with a fork. It is a decievingly tough cylinder piece of almond and sugar goo - but nonetheless, I was feeling like Wonder Woman looking down at my broken up pieces of sweet goodness. This will be my workout for the day, I thought - obviously completely naive to the arm workout ahead of me.

I dropped my softened butter into the broken up almond paste and again went back to throwing my shoulder into this batter. The smell of the soft butter and almond paste had a familiarity - I felt like I was on the right track already (these boosts of confidence are important for any 10-hour adventure).

I now rounded the corner to separating my eggs. Luckily, I had just watched Brad Leone on Bon Appétit give a quick tip on separating eggs that came in handy. Use your hands. The consistency of the egg white falling through my fingers was uncomfy, but my eggs were separated.

I proceeded to add my plump little egg yolks and 1 cup of sugar into the almond-butter mix. I was getting somewhere. The almond paste aroma filled my nostrils as I mixed the liquidy egg and sugar crystals into the already smoothed out almond-butter mix. The mix was coming together nicely, for now.

On to the flour.

I am more accustomed to baking that requires a few bowls - where you split the wet & dry ingredients, and later on combine them in a slower fashion (with mixer technology of some sort of course which I don’t know if you recall, I didn’t have). So adding these two cups of flower into this semi-wet mixture was a bit oyyy. I knew this would be a tough part, especially, when my boyfriend walked over to see the flour taking over the mixture saying, “is there supposed to be more liquid, that doesn’t look right.” However, with a bit of motivation and a LOT of muscle power, I was finally able to get this mixture into a dough form. I sighed with relief knowing I was somewhat in that right texture/dough phase that the recipe stated I should be. Moving on!

Whipping egg whites… the thing that can go terribly wrong, and ultimately ruin the consistency of a baked treat. If I knew this was required, I would have bought this damn $30 hand mixer. I’m telling you the hand mixer is actually the main point of this story. Buy it - you won’t regret it.

If you’re working from home with a boyfriend, roommate, parents, etc. you probably have a system by now for video conferences/meetings. One person has this room for calls, the other has this spot - it’s all great. What I was unprepared for was the video call room also being rather close to the kitchen as I began AGGRESSIVELY whipping my egg whites by hand with my string bean-like arms. Trying to be quiet, I changed by technique, obviously sending the whisk through the air and bashing on to the floor. I had no choice - I had to take my egg white whipping to the bedroom to mask the noise of my violent whipping. I could feel every muscle in my arm cramping, sweat forming on my forehead, my eyes spread wide looking at these egg whites praying to God that I would get the light fluff that the recipe instructed. I resorted to sitting on the floor, hunched over, putting every bit of strength into these egg whites. I finally got the white foam I needed. I rushed back to the kitchen, only to slip on the egg whites that had splashed on the floor beforehand, stubbing my toe. Holding my breath, I let out a quiet “eep” to avoid the person on Erik’s phone conference from thinking someone was getting murdered on this side of the phone. I may have lost a toe, but the egg whites had delivered. Buy the mixer, though.

Once I had carefully folded the egg whites in to my mixture, I was finally able to split my mixture into 3 to create the famous trio of colors we all know and love.

If you are using the AllRecipes version I used, each color can get about 1 cup and 3 Tablespoons of dough. This even split will make a difference when you are spreading out the doughs into their individual pans and later on piling the cooked layers.

I mixed in my food dyes until I felt the vibrancy of the red, yellow and green that resonated with my soul…I mean didn’t look too gross to eat, and placed each dough into their 13x9s.

I knew quickly that the red dye bucket needed one more scoop of dough and the yellow needed one less - as I was pulling the doughs to each corner - some with more ease than others. Tip: I found that using a spoon was easier to even out the dough throughout the tray over a baking spatula. Again - the almond aroma continued to fill my hungry and ambitious nostrils and the individual colors looked great. This was a good looking trio of almond goodness.

The trio was hit with 350 degree heat for about 13 minutes. I kept checking in, thinking that if something had gone wrong, it may be evident at this point (something wasn’t rising, the batter was wet, etc.). Everything looked okay…deep breathe.

The trio cooked beautifully - and the color sustained through baking. I waited about 2 and a half or 3 hours before touching those cakes. I wanted to make sure they were cool enough to take on the jelly without it melting off. But, I also knew I would have to somehow flip these floppy things onto each other eventually - so I was in no rush.

The parchment paper my mom got me for Christmas (and the luck of gravity on my side) really came in handy. I flipped the red piece over (successfully somehow) and proceeded to spread on the sweet apricot jelly. I used just about the whole jar.

I flopped over the middle yellow later with just my hands, feeling risky without parchment this time. The yellow layer appeared slightly larger than the red layer. I had an idea from spreading the batter earlier that there would be some unevenness in the sizes - something had to be slightly off (this is me baking after all). I layered the second jelly, raspberry, onto the yellow layer, taking a taste myself (because let’s be honest I was getting hungry from all of this flipping and flopping).

With one last flip, the green layer was secured on top. I stared at the three layers - finally looking like the rainbow goodness I’m used to seeing in pastry boxes and party platters. I plopped this trio into the fridge for a few hours to cool and condense with the new jelly fillings.

Now on to the CHAWCLAT. After boiling up some water on the stove, I placed a metal bowl on top of the pot and poured half a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips in. I stirred them around the bowl until I had a lovely chocolate sawccee, ready to layer on to the top of the trio.

It was at this point that I was deciding whether I should put chocolate on both sides of the cookie. The recipe showed one side with chocolate. I decided to keep it traditional with both sides covered.

After this was layer on, I let the chocolate cool and harden over night before jumping to my final layer of chocolate on the bottom. Plus, I had already had my glass of red and was ready to not be in the kitchen anymore.

9am is the perfect time for a little bit of chocolate stirring. I set up my boiled water again, and proceeded to heat up the last half of the semi-sweet chocolate bits. This was my last layer - these cookies and I have been through a lot together to say the least.

After doing one last flip flop, I lathered on my last layer of chocolate and put the tray in the fridge for one final chill. I paused for a moment to thank the force of gravity for not failing me as I flipped and flopped these cakes.

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Like I said, I have wanted to make these cookies for a long time now. So I felt a sense of success finally pulling these cookies out of the fridge, FINALLY, to cut up and eat. In my head, I was already fast-forwarding to the Christmas Eve’s to come, where these would be my new addition. I was looking forward to making them again, with tweaks to make them better than the last, to make them with the damn $30 hand mixer.

I was happy to taste that familiar almondy goodness biting into my own rainbow cookie. We had done it - with no damn hand mixer. Even with the intense workouts, the grocery store bill, and the beating my kitchen had taken - I had finally crossed something off my bucket list. And, we are now stocked with homemade sweet treats for the few weeks of quarantine to come. Bucket list baking #1: ✅

With all of the craziness going on outside our windows, it’s important to see the positive, take the time to do things you never could, and try new things. If you’ve got a sweet tooth like me, I would even recommend trying out this sweet project. But most importantly, get the hand mixer.