with you, how to make Italian rainbow cookies.Now I held off from making this recipe for a long

time because truly, every recipe you see for these cookies is the same. But you want to

see my version, you want to see me make them, so mine is going to be no different - very

basic like everyone else's, it's so easy though, but let me tell you that if you grew up eating

these - maybe not necessarily in an Italian household, but if you grew up where people

ate these often, then there's just something about that almond flavored sponge cookie that

is so - I don't know it's - I can't even describe it brings up such funny memories because they

just have such a very unique consistency.

Because calling it a cookie is kind of misleading because it's just really sponge cakes that

have been layered with jam and covered on top with some chocolate so it's kind of - it's

not really a cookie but more like a little tea cake if you will, but they are divine.

The ingredients you'll need to actually make the cake themselves is all purpose flour and

salt, granulated sugar, this is an almond paste, I'll talk about this in a minute, got

a few eggs that I've separated into egg yolks and whites, I've got some unsalted butter

that's been really softened at room temperature, vanilla extract and then I've got red food

coloring and then green food coloring.

You can use any food coloring you like, the whole point of Italian rainbow cookies is

that they're three layers and they are to resemble the Italian flag. They say the reason

this - the reason these were made this way was because Italians that immigrated from

Italy wanted to remind themselves of home so they made these cookies, and then they

dyed them, you know, red white and green to remind them of, you know, Italia!

But, I want to just mention one thing, almond paste, very different than marzipan, you don't

want marzipan, you want actual almond paste, when you buy this, 9 times out of 10 you buy

this in a little log, the recipe calls for 8 ounces, most of the logs that you see at

the grocery store come in 7 ounce packets, use just 7 ounces, don't worry about the extra

one ounce because I don't want you to buy two of them just to use a little tiny one

from another tube but it's quite pricey too, so 7 ounces, 8 ounces, it's fine.

I've got my oven preheated to 350, I'm going to make this in my standing mixer, the first

thing I want to do is add my almond paste and I'm just going to let this kind of move

around a little bit just to break this up into smaller pieces and in the meantime, what

I'm going to do, is in a separate bowl with another, electric whisk, I'm going to whip

up the egg whites until they're nice and stiff peaks, and I'll show you what they look like

when they're done!

I'm actually going to add my sugar to my almond paste and I'm going to let that mix for just

a couple of minutes, it's going to just kind of look like it's all crumbly but that's fine.

Let that go for a couple of minutes - you can see if you look really in there, the almond

paste is kind of breaking up a little bit so let this go for like 2 or 3 minutes or

until the almond paste kind of breaks up even more and then we'll start adding our butter

and everything will come together but I've got my egg whites ready, so I am just getting

really really close. You can already start to see it's even breaking up even more, so

just give it a couple minutes and it'll be exactly where we want it.

This is looking absolutely perfect, so I'm going to start adding in the butter, I might

even do it with the motor running, I love that I'm just making a giant mess.

Let's turn the motor off, shall we?

Let me add the butter, the butter is really soft at room temperature because - as you

know - I put it on top of my stove with my oven on, because you know, I'm impatient like

that and I want it to get nice and soft really quickly, but it gets sometimes a little bit

too soft. But, now anyway, I'm going to add it all in and then I'm just going to let this

mix again for another minute or two, or until the mixture is kind of almost creamy, but

I'll show you what it looks like when it's there, but it is quite crucial that your butter

is at room temperature, really nice and soft because after all you want this to be almost

like an almond paste, if you will.

Perfect, that's looking lovely and creamy, I'm going to add my egg yolks at this point

along with some vanilla extract, not too much but you do want a nice little splash, and

all you're going to do is just mix until this is combined.

And that one should just give everything a really good scrape around the edges, and I

know this is looking really kind of odd, but again, keep in mind this is actually not a

cookie dough, but more like a sponge, so it works out.

The dry ingredients, if you can make it so these don't fall all over the place, then

you are my hero!

As you can see, I couldn't! Ha!

Okay, now all I want you to do is mix until the dry ingredients are combined, don't over

mix it because you don't - don't - I'm like really weird today, so I apologize!

But you don't want to over mix this otherwise the sponge itself will be really heavy, so

just mi until combined and then by hand we'll fold in the egg whites.

Okay, this is looking perfect. Get this off.

I"m just going to - it's really thick at this point - I'm just going to take all of this

off the paddle attachment, I really don't want to leave anything behind. I want all

of this to end up in my cookie.

Now, what you want to do - if you are quicker at this than I am, probably are, but if you

want to do is you want to make sure you give everything a really good stir from the sides

and the bottom to make sure there are no big chunks of like dry ingredients, so now what

you do is you take a little bit of your egg whites, maybe I would say a third and at this

point, this you can kind of beat it in because all you're trying to do is kind of loosen

up that batter, and the rest of it we'll fold it in quite carefully, but this is just to

kind of loosen it for now.

Okay, I've finished folding in all of my egg whites, now this is what I want you to do.

You need to divide this batter among three different pieces, so you need the first - the

first thing I'm going to do is just take my third and put it on this little baking sheet,

this is like a 13 by 9.

Just put this third here for now. Okay, and then I'm going to take another section and

put it in this bowl, and I'm going to leave the rest in this one. Because, we need to

dye this, first of all, I'm going to just take a little bit less off of that and put

it in here.

What I need to do is dye these two, so this is going to be the white layer, and then I

need a green and I need a red so what I'm going to do first - I guess I'll work on the

red and I'm just using food coloring, you can use as much or as little as you want to

get the intense color that you are looking for but basically, you're looking for, again,

a nice bright layer.

Doesn't get too complicated, try to - if you can - which I know can be difficult to fold

this in, rather than really beat it in because I don't want to lose any of the air from the

egg whites.

Okay, so I've got my red, I've got my white, I've got my green, now I'm going to give you

a couple of tips. It's going to look like you don't have enough batter for each one,

but remember you need a very thin layer because this will puff up as it bakes and then they'll

be layered together, a small offset spatula does a beautiful job at spreading this out,

another tip: have a little cup of water handy and then just dip it in it makes it so that

the batter doesn't stick.

See?

And then all you do is you just spread this as even as you can manage, you do want to

make sure it's quite even and it's not really thin in one area and really thick in others

because that will kind of show up when you go and cut these but I don't want you to literally

be here for twenty five minutes trying to figure out how to make this nice and even,

but if you see certain places are thinner than others then just adjust. But look how

easy this, I mean it's very easy, it's got a few steps, yes of course, and the batter

kind of looks like it's never going to come together but it does, you just gotta trust

me. Have I failed you yet? And trust me, if I can do it, if it's not too time consuming

for me and I can do it, anybody can do it!

Going to pop these into the oven, these will only take about ten minutes to fully cook

- to fully bake - and then you want them to cool completely and I'll show you the assembly.

It's like I'm feeling all French patisserie, even though these are not French cookies,

but I just feel really fancy that I'm layering up cookies.

Okie dokie, my little sponges are fully cooked and they've cooled pretty much completely,

they don't take very long since they're so thin, now what I have here is some apricot

jam, you could use apricot, you could use raspberry, you could use whatever you want.

But traditionally it's apricot, so what I'm going to do, first of all, Italian flag:red

white and green, that's how you want to layer this.

Now what I want to do is take about half of my jam, and then I'm just going to spread

this nice and evenly, using my little spatula. It's - you don't necessarily want a really

huge thick layer of jam, you want quite a thin layer because you're going to weigh this

down and it's going to kind of like really adhere to the cake and just be really fantastic,

but if the layers of jam were too thick, it just, I don't know I don't like that. I like

a nice thin layer of jam and then the cake and then .. it's so good, so so good!

But, see, it was really easy, you just kind of spread this nice and evenly, then we do

the white layer, and of course you just plop this right out, take the parchment, because

I did use the parchment paper underneath everything to make sure nothing sticks.

And if it breaks a little bit like that, that's fine because, remember, we're going to weight

everything down and everything looks - it'll look perfect, and then you just do the rest

of the jam, and it makes it a little bit easier if it's like smooth, if there's no chunks

of fruit in the jam, it makes the spreading a little bit easier, but you can see mine

has just a few little chunks here and there, and that's fine with me. What I did do though,

and what I suggest you do as well, so that it makes kind of spreading this out a little

bit easier, is I pop this into a microwave for about 30 seconds not to make it hot, but

just to loosen it a little bit so that it spreads a little bit easier.

So, this looks perfect, and now I'm just going to top it with my last layer, which is my

green, just trying to get this little corner here, and I love the smell of apricot jam,

it's one of my favorite, favorite smells ever - as far as jam goes.

Okay, get that little piece off.

Come on now!

I know you want to stay on my cookie, but you gotta go!

Okay, that looks perfect!

No more jam, what you need to do now - don't worry because any little crack is going to

all be covered, don't you worry, what you need to do now is grab some plastic wrap,

what makes it easier is if you wrap the whole thing, which I know sounds so odd right now

and you're like 'what is she talking about?' but just you wait because nothing sticks better

to plastic wrap than plastic wrap, so what I do is I just put one layer like that underneath

like so, and then I'm going to wrap this a few times.

And then just take one of the baking sheets, and now what I need you to do is just to grab

a couple of cans, I"m going to grab a few more, and you want to weigh this down. And

I'm going to pop this into the fridge and let it just hang out and sit there with a

few more cans on top of it for about four hours and - you can do a minimum of four hours

and up to overnight, it's completely up to you, we'll see how I'm feeling a little bit

later on, whether I want to wait overnight or not, depending on how - you know - impatient

I'm being at the time, so I'm going to pop this in the fridge and I'll show you what

it looks like when it's done.

My cookie base was in the fridge, actually overnight, I was going to leave it for four

hours, but then I figured I might as well just leave it overnight. Remember, this was

weighed down, I had a cookie sheet on top with a ton of cans of tomato sauce to make

sure it was really weighed down, and it's amazing, it's perfect, good to go.

Before I unwrap it I want to get going on my chocolate topping. What I have here is

some bittersweet chocolate chips, now it's kind of important that you use bittersweet,

it's the whole contrast of flavor that makes the cookies so, so good. If you were to use

milk chocolate it would be too sweet, and since the actual cookie itself is kind of

sweet, you just need something to off balance that, and the bittersweet chocolate works

perfectly.

I have this in a microwave safe bowl, I"m going to pop it in the microwave and melt

the chocolate according to my melt chocolate microwave setting, you can also do this in

a double boiler, just take a saucepan that your bowl will sit perfectly on top of, fill

it - fill the saucepan with about an inch of water, bring it to a simmer, put this on