Debbi does Passover

Wow, I haven't written in here in a while-sorry I've been slacking! In an attempt to get in writing mode to start my philosophy essay (ya, right-more like procrastinating further) I decided I should sit down and fill ya’ll in on what I’ve been baking and making lately. Though this post will primarily focus on my delicious Passover desserts I’ll also mention my conquests prior to Passover!

My last post followed Rachel’s goodbye party that I baked for over spring break, but her party desserts were the least of my spring baking extravaganza. During the course of the one week I was home I managed to crank out not only the red velvet cupcakes, peanut butter bars, and cream cheese frosting but also homemade whipped cream, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cup cookies, Mexican wedding cookies, two angel food cakes, and a challah. Exhausting? Absolutely not! More like refreshing. I only have pictures of the peanut butter cup cookies, but everything was incredible.

The peanut butter cup cookies were absolute heaven.

Now onto Passover. The first Seder (big feast to welcome the holiday) fell on Monday night and I celebrated in San Antonio with Louis’ family. In order to show my gratitude and contribute to the meal I made a flourless chocolate cake (one of my favorite desserts year round) as well as caramel and chocolate covered matzah. To say that these desserts were a hit is an understatement. Everyone loved them, and they perfectly complemented the incredible meal that Louis’ mother made for everyone. No exaggerating when I say that it was quite possibly one of the best and most fun seders I’ve attended. Just because I’m still in awe over the fish that Louis’ mom made, I have to mention it. It was the most simply delectable salmon. All she topped it with was a little brown sugar and orange for acidity. I know that this sounds like it would be super sweet, but it wasn’t. These flavors perfectly balanced the fishiness of the salmon, making it an absolute treat for me as a non-meat eater. As everyone else consumed the brisket (which, not gonna lie, I was definitely salivating over…) I enthusiastically gobbled up my fish. For the second seder Marcie invited a gaggle of us over, and her family put on one of the most festive seders ever. There was music, games, and DELISH food to put everyone in a merry mood. Though I intended to bring my desserts to her seder also, I had a brain fart and forgot to buy pareve margarine (rather than butter-my favorite) at the grocery store, and was unable to contribute because it would have been dairy. Alas, I e-mailed her family my recipe and they knocked the cake outta the park-soooo good. Thank you both to the Stahl and Kirschner family for including me in your celebrations-they were wonderful!

Ok, back to the desserts. Flourless chocolate cake and the caramel and chocolate covered matzah are not only delicious Passover desserts, but also mind-numbingly simple. The matzah has 7 ingredients and the flourless chocolate cake has 5-all of which are bound to be laying around the kitchen. I’m posting both recipes because they both add something special to Passover when flavorless food reigns. This year, change it up. Even if it means more sugar than you’re comfortable with, at least you’ll be consuming something way more appetizing than a Passover boxed cake mix or store bought gummy fruit (I’ll admit-I’m a total sucker for the fruit slices-only the orange ones, though!) and EVERYONE you know will be appreciative. Rather than hoarding all of it for yourself make up gift bags to bring to friends, and wish all your loved ones a hag sameach with something sweet and decadent!

First, the flourless chocolate cake:
Adapted from a recipe on allrecipes.com:
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, cubed (or pareve margarine for a pareve cake)
8 oz semisweet chocolate (Kosher for Passover variety)
1 1/4 cup white sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
6 eggs

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter the bottom of a 10 inch springform pan, and line with parchment paper.
2. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Stir in chocolate, and continue to stir until almost melted. Remove from heat, and stir until melted and smooth. In a large bowl, stir together 1 1/4 cups sugar and the cocoa powder. Whisk in the eggs until well blended, then whisk in the chocolate and butter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for about 45 minutes in the preheated oven. The cake is ready when the edges have nicely puffed and the surface is firm except for a small spot in the center that will jiggle when the pan is gently shaken. Cool cake in the pan over a wire rack. Run a knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake, then remove the sides of the pan, and invert onto a serving plate. Remove the parchment paper.
   

End product-DELICIOUS!

Caramel and chocolate covered matzah:
A recipe from David Lebovitz
Ingredients:
4 to 6 sheets unsalted matzohs
1 cup (230g) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 cup (215g) firmly-packed light brown sugar
big pinch of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (160g) semisweet chocolate chips (or chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate)
1 cup (80g) toasted sliced almonds (optional)

Directions:

1. Line a rimmed baking sheet (approximately 11 x 17", 28 x 42cm) completely with foil, making sure the foil goes up and over the edges. Cover the foil with a sheet of parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375F (190C).
2. Line the bottom of the sheet with matzoh, breaking extra pieces as necessary to fill in any spaces.
3. In a 3-4 quart (3-4l) heavy duty saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar together, and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the mixture is beginning to boil. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add the salt and vanilla, and pour over matzoh, spreading with a heatproof spatula.
4. Put the pan in the oven and reduce the heat to 350F (175C) degrees. Bake for 15 minutes. As it bakes, it will bubble up but make sure it's not burning every once in a while. If it is in spots, remove from oven and reduce the heat to 325F (160C), then replace the pan.
5. Remove from oven and immediately cover with chocolate chips. Let stand 5 minutes, then spread with an offset spatula.
6. If you wish, sprinkle with toasted almonds (or another favorite nut, toasted and coarsely-chopped), a sprinkle of flaky sea salt, or roasted cocoa nibs.
7. Let cool completely, the break into pieces and store in an airtight container until ready to serve.

The finished matzah-so so so good (not an adjective I typically use to describe matzah)

Ps-I'm about to embark on making a matzah grilled cheese...could either be an innovative, delicious meal or a disaster. I'll let you know next post!

A sweet farewell (but not goodbye)...

I’m dedicating this post to my sister Rachel who, after 23 years of living at home (with the exception of college), is spreading her wings and moving to Tel Aviv on Sunday for 5 months of self-reflection. For nearly 20 years my sister has been my best friend – from playing with Barbies as children to indulging in fashion documentaries and biopics as we’re doing tonight (Coco Before Chanel, anyone?) we’ve always managed to keep each other entertained. She is by far my favorite shopping buddy, work-out partner (she’s currently trying to whip my abs into submission-too bad there’s too much delicious food derailing me from her plot!), and of course-dining companion. There is no one else who understands the giddy anticipation as we await Thursday Mac N’ Cheese night at the deli down the street, the excitement as we order both types of cheesy goodness with a side of fries, and the disappointment when it fails to live up to our expectations. She and I could travel the world trying to find the most perfect chocolate chip cookies, or be completely content making our own (ok, I’m the only one doing the making-but she’s a great consumer) and noshing on the leftover dough while we eagerly await their completion. So, Rach-this post is all for you. For the next five months, and the few days before you go, everything I bake you can think of as being inspired by you.

So, per Rachel’s request I baked an unreasonable amount of treats for her going away “party” she had on Saturday. Though it wasn’t much of a party the desserts sure were delicious and we had a great time playing scrabble until the wee hours of the morning. The refreshments consisted of red velvet cupcakes with my cream cheese frosting and peanut butter bars. For the cupcakes I used a recipe from a book given to me by my brother-The Golden Book of Baking (it’s fantastic-buy it!) and the peanut butter bar recipe was given to me by Rachel’s boyfriend, Dave whose grandmother had given it to him. Because the peanut butter bars truly a treasure and one of the best recipes I’ve ever used, I’m going to post the recipe to those. They are ridiculously simple almost to the point where you want to make them everyday-but restrain yourself! Dave also took incredible photos of all of these sweets, and made them look truly magnificent.

All of the desserts together.

Red velvet cupcake.

Peanut butter bars.

Peanut butter bars:
Ingredients-
½ cup white sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
1 ½ cups of peanut butter (12 oz jar)
4 cups of corn flakes (Yup, you read right-CORN FLAKES!)
½ cup milk chocolate chips

Mix peanut butter, sugar and corn syrup in saucepan well and cook on medium heat for about 10 mins. Remove from heat and mix in corn flakes until well distributed.
Grease an 11x7 pan and pour in mixture, evenly spreading it to completely cover the surface. Add chocolate chips on top and put in oven on low heat until chocolate chips are slightly melted (about 2 minutes)! Cool and cut into small squares about ¼ the size of a typical brownie.

~

Rach, there's no friend like a sister-and certainly no sister that could compare to you. I know you'll have the best time in Israel and find exactly what it is you've been craving. For all the things I admire you for this is just one more to add to the list.

Hamantaschen and bruschetta: funny names, seriously delicious.

I've certainly got some catching up to do. Last week was crazy (as they often are while being a student) so I wasn't able to adequately write about my latest food conquests-but they exist!

First, we'll start off with the hamantaschen extravaganza of last weekend. For those of you who have no clue what hamantaschen are they are delicious, triangle shaped, jelly (or anything really) filled Jewish cookies that are baked in copious amounts for the holiday of Purim. Purim is pretty much like Jewish Halloween - only instead of candy you eat hamantaschen and are supposed to drink (only if you're of legal age, of course!). Anyways, I felt like I had a void in my life by not baking any hamantaschen, because in my family when Purim rolls around my mom, sister, and I bake dozens of them. This nostalgia spurred me to take matters into my own hands and go for it! It's no fun alone, so I called Rachael and Elana, two of my best friends (pretty much sisters, actually), over and we got to work. About 40 apricot, nutella, strawberry, peanut butter, chocolate chip, sprinkles and chocolate chips, and Elana's daring black bean hamantaschen later-we were done, and somewhat pleased with the result. Some opened in the oven, so instead of retaining their triangular shape they ended up as flat cookies with filling, but they were still delicious so no big deal! I'd post the recipe, but it's not mine-it's the one Elana's family uses, and is not mine to share-so this one remains a secret!

Yummy hamantaschen:

Later in the week I found myself totally depleted of food in my apartment (seriously, I was making meals of Teddy Grahams...) Luckily though, Israel Block Party was on Wednesday night and at the end they had a plethora of produce to give away. Walking the couple blocks to my apartment armed with 5 apples, a potato, an onion, and an eggplant I found myself contemplating exactly what I wanted to do with these ingredients. Louis and I had a date planned for Thursday but in lieu of eating somewhere crowded and noisy, I offered to cook dinner instead and make use of this cornucopia of veggies. I felt ambitious so for dinner I made mozzarella bruschetta and pasta with crispy eggplant and sauteed veggies. I loathe tomatoes, but after having this bruschetta I've seen the light. The recipe is courtesy of Giada (who doesn't love her??) from food network, but I seriously cut it down because I only needed to serve two people, also I used fresh roma tomatoes rather than canned which is what she has in the recipe, and instead of a french baguette I used a loaf of artisan wheat bread (attempt at being healthy), and cut the slices into halves to make them bite size. The pasta was a culmination of my own ideas, and is ridiculously simple, though a little time consuming from all the chopping and such of ingredients.

The finished product, beautiful and delicious:

• 1/2 box of whole wheat pasta
• 1 eggplant, julienned
• 4 tablespoons olive oil, or more depending on size of pan
  
• 5 cremini mushrooms, chopped
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cups of spinach
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
  
• sea salt (my new favorite ingredient) and pepper
• 2 tablespoons grano padano cheese (or parmesean, romano, ricotta salata, whatever cheese you deem fit!)
  

1. Cut the eggplant into large horizontal slices, sprinkle with salt and place in a collander for 30 minutes to allow the vegetable to sweat.
2. Boil water for pasta, and cook it up
   
3. Heat olive oil in large skillet
   
4. Once the eggplant has noticeably sweated, julienne the large slices into skinny strips, and allow to fry in the olive oil only for a few minutes-until desired crispiness. Once they are done, drain them on a paper towel and place them in the oven at a low temp to stay warm
   
5. Sautee garlic, onions, and mushrooms with about a tablespoon of olive oil, season with sea salt and pepper
   
6. About 2 minutes before pasta is done, turn the heat on the stove on low and add spinach and basil to the sauteed vegetables, allowing them to just wilt in the heat.
   
7. Mix the veggies in with the pasta and top with cheese and voila! Delicious dinner for two!

Ps if you don't know my good friend Rachael, she's also a huge foodie who I admire a lot. She's working as an intern at Saveur this summer (ya, Rach, I'm bragging on you) and has an amazing food blog as well-go check it out and prepare to be wowed!