Sweets

While Jews of Eastern European descent celebrate Hanukkah with mountains of latkes, Sephardic Jews fry sufganiyot. But for everyone – and every holiday – there’s always…chocolate?

Yes, just about everyone’s favorite ingredient never goes out of season, claims award-winning author Alice Medrich, whose book “Chocolate Holidays: Unforgettable Desserts for Every Season” (Artisan) offers 50 luscious, decadent recipes to crown every holiday and celebration.

“I wanted to do a season-to-season book,” said Medrich by phone from her Berkley, California, home. “Other ingredients we like to cook with change with the seasons. The constant is chocolate.”

Jewish cooks know that Hanukkah is all about the oil. The symbolism goes back to ancient times, when Judah Maccabee and his tiny army defeated the Syrian-Greeks and recaptured Jerusalem. In attempting to rededicate the Temple, they found only enough oil to burn for one day. Miraculously it lasted eight days, and we've been celebrating with a frying frenzy ever since! But who says traditional potato latkes are the only fritter fit to fry?

“Chocolate Banana Blintzes are fried, and Hanukkah is a great excuse to serve them,” noted Medrich. “They are just so delicious, a fancy party dessert that’s easy to do.” Restraint, she said, is sometimes the secret ingredient. “A little burst of chocolate sauce in a hot crepe with bananas is more seductive than a chocolate blintz with chocolate filling,” she writes.

Another lesser-known Hanukkah tradition involves the story of Judith, a beautiful Jewish widow, who dined with the enemy general Holofernes. She plied him with cheese to make him thirsty for wine, and when he fell into a drunken stupor, she beheaded him with his own sword. Because her bravery is said to have inspired the Maccabees, some communities remember Judith by eating cheese during this holiday.

I don’t come from a long line of pie bakers. I don’t think my grandmother, Mama Hinda, ever baked one…I know my mother never did. Yet to my mind as a young bride, nothing epitomized consummate homemaking skills as much as the baking of pies, something I would not even attempt for decades. 

For many years I lived with a dough phobia, the result of a kitchen disaster I call the “kreplach incident.” I had rolled out the dough for these little meat-filled dumplings, carefully placed them in boiling water and they exploded! That experience created a fear of all things rolled that spilled over to piecrusts and pastries and lasted over thirty years.

Although in the ensuing years I rolled cookie dough and turned out homemade knishes by the dozens with ease, somehow pie baking I thought of as a magical gift bestowed from birth on some, but never to be attained by others. Genetics, perhaps?

“I’m just not a dough person,” I would lament… until testing recipes for my cookbook forced me to face my fears (and without a support group). Recipes needed to be tested. I cooked. I baked. I even perfected the dreaded kreplach! The pies I left for last.   

Finally, in an “Aha!” moment of the kitchen kind, I realized…I roll cookie dough, I roll knish dough. Now I even roll kreplach dough! Surely I can roll pie dough.

Enter cooking instructor Barbara Shenson, whom my daughter-in-law Tracey met when Shenson was teaching for Home Chef, a cooking school and store in San Francisco. Her pie-making tips put that last notch in my belt.

“My crust always shrinks,” I whined. Read the whole story.

You adored it as a kid, but you’ve never outgrown it. Here are two words that make everyone’s eyes light up – ice cream!

“In the store-bought category there’s good, not so good and really bad,” said food writer and consultant Peggy Fallon, author of “The Best Ice Cream Maker Cookbook Ever” (HarperCollins) from her Northern California home. Ice cream maker? Do I need yet another unused appliance taking up space on my counter, I wondered.

Then I leafed through the book and I was smitten. Chocolate Pumpkin with Hazelnuts. Peaches ‘n’ Cream. Double Ginger. Utterly Peanut Butter with a whole cup of peanut butter in a quart of ice cream!  But with so many even gourmet ice creams available today, why would I want to make my own?

“I think the appeal of homemade ice cream, sorbets and frozen yogurts is that you control what goes into them,” Fallon noted. “There are so many odd ingredients in most supermarket ice cream. Just look at the labels. When you make your own, you use real cream, eggs, sugar and milk. If you’re concerned about what you put into your body, it’s better to eat real food.”

Sounds great, but I’m thinking, remember that bread machine you couldn’t live without and the havoc it played with your waistline?

Then I read on. A chapter called “On the Lighter Side” offers mouthwatering light ice creams, frozen yogurts, granitas and sorbets with alluring titles such as Maple Crunch Light Ice Cream, Tangy Orange Iced Buttermillk, Honey Vanilla Frozen Yogurt and Pear Sorbet with Zinfandel and Fresh Basil.  Read the whole story 

Too Good to Call Passover Cake Bête Noire
(Flourless Chocolate Cake)

8 ounces unsweetened chocolate, very coarsely chopped
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, very coarsely chopped
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into small pieces
5 extra-large eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan (not a springform), line it with a round of parchment paper, and butter the paper.

2. Place both chocolates in a food processor and process until chopped.

3. Combine the sugar and ½ cup water in a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

4. With the processor on, add the boiling sugar syrup to the chocolate through the feed tube. Add the butter, piece by piece, followed by the eggs. Process only until very smooth.

5. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan. Set the pan in a larger baking pan, and fill the larger pan with warm water to reach halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Carefully transfer the pan to the oven, and bake on the center oven rack until a sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the cake pan from the larger pan and transfer it to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes.

6. Run a sharp knife around the edges of the pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap, and invert it onto a baking sheet. Lift off the pan and peel off the parchment paper. Then invert a cake plate over the cake, and invert the plate and baking sheet together, so the cake is now right side up. Remove the plastic wrap.

7. Serve the cake warm, cold, or at room temperature. It will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Serves 12 or more

My friend Eileen Cohen knows her chocolate. In a blind taste test she can tell Tobleron from Godiva with her hands tied behind her back.

That’s why, when she raved about the chocolate mousse that nutrition expert and cookbook author Jennifer Flynn had served, I was intrigued. A healthy chocolate mousse? What was the secret? Would you believe avocado?

“Nobody believes me when I tell them they are eating avocado,” said Flynn, author of “The Super Food Generation: 14 Foods That Get You Glowing.”

“It’s amazing how well the other ingredients mask the flavor of this buttery fruit. The heart-healthy fat of the avocado is a perfect replacement for the dairy cream used in traditional mousse.”

Flynn became a vegetarian when a friend brought her an article about the conditions in slaughterhouses.

“I’m a really big animal lover, and I thought, I don’t want to be a part of this. My family didn’t think it would last, but I started paying attention to ingredients and noticing the hidden animal byproducts and ingredients you can’t even pronounce the names of.”

“The Super Food Generation” is not a diet book. “I wanted to get back to basics and promote healthy foods and ingredients rather than a particular diet,” she explained. “I want people be open-minded and not think so much about having to stick to a diet, but become more familiar with the healthy foods out there and adapt them to their own particular diet.”

Besides the avocado, pumpkin – along with carrots, sweet potatoes and its relatives in the squash family – is another of the 14 super foods that work “synergistically with the human body to unlock vitality, strengthen immunity and literally slow down the aging process,” Flynn writes.

Excuse me? Pumpkin Pie a health food? We’re talking about a healthy Thanksgiving feast now?

Fireworks! Parades! Barbecues! Flag-waving! It’s our nation’s birthday, and celebrating the Fourth of July with any of the above is as American as apple pie. But is our beloved classic dessert really American, I wonder?

There were no apples in the New World until the early European explorers brought the seeds
Read the whole story

Molly O'Neill tallks about my Mama Hinda's Passover Nut Cake on www.grandparents.com - a wonderful site, by the way, for all the bubbes (and zaydies too!) For the recipe and story click here.

Source: “Aromas of Aleppo” by Poopa Dweck

2 pounds fresh coconut meat, shredded (about 2 to 3 coconuts), or store-bought unsweetened coarsely shredded coconut (see cook’s note)
3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon orange blossom water
1 cup pistachios, shelled, blanched, and peeled

Cook’s note: If you use store-bought unsweetened coconut, place it in a mixing bowl and add cold water. Gently fluff the coconut with your hands and let stand for 1 hour to plump and moisten the flakes. Drain before using.
1. In a medium saucepan, combine coconut meat, sugar, lemon juice, 1 cup water, and orange blossom water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
2. Reduce heat to low and simmer 8 to 10 minutes, stirring the mixture occasionally with a wooden spoon. While coconut mixture is still hot, stir in pistachios. Mix well, and cool before serving.
Yield: 40 servings (2 quarts)

Yemenite Haroset Truffles

1/3 cup (2 ounces) pitted dates
1/3 cup (2 ounces) dried figs
1/3 cup (2 ounces) raisins
1/3 cup (2 ounces) dried apricots
2 1/2 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 cup toasted coarsely chopped pecans
3/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted
1 1/2 tablespoons orange liqueur

FOR THE COATING
1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted and finely ground

1. Combine the dried fruit, honey, and spices in a food processor
and pulse until smooth. Add the pecans, slivered almonds, and orange
liqueur, and process until well combined.
2. Form the mixture into balls 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Roll them
in the ground almonds, and place them in individual fluted foil or
paper candy cups. Refrigerate, covered, until firm, at least 3 hours.
These will keep for up to 5 days in the refrigerator.

Makes 16 to 20

From “Pure Dessert” by Alice Medrich

8 ounces 70% bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into several pieces
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
Scant 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (1.2 ounces) all-purpose flour

1. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350˚F.
Line bottom and sides of 8-inch square baking pan with foil.

2. Place chocolate and butter in heatproof bowl and set in wide skillet
of almost-simmering water. Stir frequently until mixture is melted,
smooth and quite warm. Remove from pan and set aside.

3. In medium bowl, beat eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla with hand-held
mixer on high speed until eggs are thick and light colored, about 2
minutes. Whisk in warm chocolate. Fold in flour.

4. Scrape batter into lined pan and spread evenly. Bake until toothpick
inserted in center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan on
rack.

5. Invert brownies on rack and peel off foil. Turn right side up on cutting board and cut into sixteen 2-inch squares.