AuthorviagelatohawaiiCategoryBakingDifficultyIntermediateThese iconic New York City rainbow cookies are gorgeous to look at, make and eat. They have a flavor of almonds, a moist and dense sponge cake texture with tart notes of fruit jam and a thin delicate sheet of chocolate on top. I used to buy and received many gifts of these Italian rainbow cookies from Court Pastry when I lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York. There are several Italian bakeries in Carrol Gardens and they are called rainbow cookies and sold by weight along with all the other Italian shortbread cookies and biscotti, but really, they are tiny layered cakes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In a bowl sift together:
2 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
In a food processor blitz together:
7oz broken up tube of almond paste
1.5 cups sugar
In a mixer whisk together on high until fluffy (~5 min):
the almond sugar mixture
7 eggs
Add:
1 teaspoon almond extract/oil
8 Tbsp melted butter
Fold in the sifted flour mixture. It will look like thick pancake batter.
Prep a sheet pan with parchment and spray with cooking spray. Pour out 376g of the batter onto the pan or just roughly estimate a third. It will look like an oblong pancake that doesn't fill the pan.
Bake it for 12 minutes. When it's done, it will resemble a pancake even more; with air bubbles formed throughout the surface (this is good). If there are only air bubbles around the perimeter, you need to bake it more, until the center also has air bubbles. Do not bake it until it is brown - simply bake until you see air bubbles all popped forming holes on the top.
You're baking 3 layers: white, red, green.
You've baked the white layer so far (sorry I only took photos of the red layer).
Next prep the red and green batter by dividing what is left in half (376g each)
add 1/2 tsp food coloring to each batter to color them.
Bake each layer 12 minutes.
If you don't have 3 cookie sheets/pans, just lift the parchment with the cake still attached off the pan. Put a new parchment down and pour the batter on top and bake.
Once you have all 3 layers baked, take out your jam and heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds so it's easier to spread. I used a bunch of leftover jams I had in the fridge: apricot, mango and lilikoi totaling to ~2/3 cup of jam. The key to the jam is it MUST be TART. Taste it...if it's not tart, add 1 tbsp lemon juice until you feel like it has a tart kick.
Start with one of the layers (I started with green) spread 1/3 cup jam on it.
Stack the white layer on top of it. Remove the parchment
Spread 1/3 cup jam on the white layer
Stack the last layer on top of it. Remove the parchment
(It will look like a stack of pancakes and they won't all be perfectly lined up. That's normal. After you apply the chocolate, you'll trim the edges so you can see all the lovely layers clearly. I trimmed the edge of this so you can see what it looks like inside, even though it doesn't look like much yet)
Melt 1 cup of dark chocolate (a 6 ounce fancy dark chocolate bar broken up is YUM, chocolate chips are fine.)
Pour the melted dark chocolate on top and spread it across the top of the cake.
If you're extra fancy, melt 1/3 cup of white chocolate which is about a 1/3 of a bar. Drizzle and spatter it on top like a painting.
And if you want to feather it so it looks like latte art, drag a knife perpendicular to the white chocolate strands.
Pop this sheet into the fridge and while you clean, the chocolate will set a little firmer (~10 minutes). Take it out and cut it into cubes with a serrated bread knife and share them!
Any edges you've trimmed off eat them! They may not look like perfect cubes, but they still taste amazing. Good job, you!
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In a bowl sift together:
2 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
In a food processor blitz together:
7oz broken up tube of almond paste
1.5 cups sugar
In a mixer whisk together on high until fluffy (~5 min):
the almond sugar mixture
7 eggs
Add:
1 teaspoon almond extract/oil
8 Tbsp melted butter
Fold in the sifted flour mixture. It will look like thick pancake batter.
Prep a sheet pan with parchment and spray with cooking spray. Pour out 376g of the batter onto the pan or just roughly estimate a third. It will look like an oblong pancake that doesn't fill the pan.
Bake it for 12 minutes. When it's done, it will resemble a pancake even more; with air bubbles formed throughout the surface (this is good). If there are only air bubbles around the perimeter, you need to bake it more, until the center also has air bubbles. Do not bake it until it is brown - simply bake until you see air bubbles all popped forming holes on the top.
You're baking 3 layers: white, red, green.
You've baked the white layer so far (sorry I only took photos of the red layer).
Next prep the red and green batter by dividing what is left in half (376g each)
add 1/2 tsp food coloring to each batter to color them.
Bake each layer 12 minutes.
If you don't have 3 cookie sheets/pans, just lift the parchment with the cake still attached off the pan. Put a new parchment down and pour the batter on top and bake.
Once you have all 3 layers baked, take out your jam and heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds so it's easier to spread. I used a bunch of leftover jams I had in the fridge: apricot, mango and lilikoi totaling to ~2/3 cup of jam. The key to the jam is it MUST be TART. Taste it...if it's not tart, add 1 tbsp lemon juice until you feel like it has a tart kick.
Start with one of the layers (I started with green) spread 1/3 cup jam on it.
Stack the white layer on top of it. Remove the parchment
Spread 1/3 cup jam on the white layer
Stack the last layer on top of it. Remove the parchment
(It will look like a stack of pancakes and they won't all be perfectly lined up. That's normal. After you apply the chocolate, you'll trim the edges so you can see all the lovely layers clearly. I trimmed the edge of this so you can see what it looks like inside, even though it doesn't look like much yet)
Melt 1 cup of dark chocolate (a 6 ounce fancy dark chocolate bar broken up is YUM, chocolate chips are fine.)
Pour the melted dark chocolate on top and spread it across the top of the cake.
If you're extra fancy, melt 1/3 cup of white chocolate which is about a 1/3 of a bar. Drizzle and spatter it on top like a painting.
And if you want to feather it so it looks like latte art, drag a knife perpendicular to the white chocolate strands.
Pop this sheet into the fridge and while you clean, the chocolate will set a little firmer (~10 minutes). Take it out and cut it into cubes with a serrated bread knife and share them!
Any edges you've trimmed off eat them! They may not look like perfect cubes, but they still taste amazing. Good job, you!