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April 3, 2009
From my pan pals' kitchens
These desserts for Passover would be treats any time of year.
NORENE GILLETZ
Here are some wonderful sweets to prepare and share with your friends and family. They're perfect for Passover – or any time of year. I've chosen some fabulous favorites that come from the kitchens of some of my "pan pals." Although we've never met in person, we all share a love of cooking and baking.
I've also included my recipe for Mustachudos, a delicious gluten-free cookie that only requires four ingredients. It's one of my favorite cookie recipes. Nothing could be easier – there's no separating of eggs or beating of egg whites – and you can't beat that! I hope you enjoy this wonderful Turkish delight that was shared by two pan pals from the other side of the globe, Helen Berg of Australia and the late Raya Tarab of Israel.
Sweet wishes for a sweet Passover shared with family and friends!
NORENE'S MUSTACHUDOS
Source: The Food Processor Bible (Whitecap Books)
3 cups almonds (or a mixture of walnuts and pecans)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
1. Steel blade: Process almonds using on/off pulses, until coarsely chopped, about 30 seconds. (Walnuts and pecans will take less time.) Don't grind nuts too fine or you will have nut butter. Empty bowl. Process sugar with eggs and cinnamon until well mixed, about 25 to 30 seconds. Add nuts and process 10 to 15 seconds longer to combine. Mixture will be like a thick paste.
2. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheets, leaving one inch between cookies. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. When done, cookies will be oatmeal-colored, with lightly browned edges. However, they will be slightly soft and not look fully baked. Do not remove cookies from pan until completely cooled. They will firm up as they cool. If baked until firm, they will be too hard when they cool completely.
Yields four to five dozen. They freeze well.
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Israeli cookbook author Tamar Ansh, the author of Pesach: Anything's Possible!, kindly shared the recipe for this delicious cheesecake from her wonderful and creative cookbook. Ansh wrote, "This is one great cheesecake recipe and you needn't make it only for Pesach. It serves so well, I'm sure you will want to use it again on Shavuot, on long summer afternoons or at family gatherings. Depending on the time of year, you can arrange different fruit toppings on it, other than what I have done ... with blueberries."
TAMAR ANSH'S LUSCIOUS CHEESECAKE
Source: Pesach: Anything's Possible! (Targum Press)
7 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups low fat cream cheese (or 500 g. Israeli soft 5 per cent white cheese)
1 to 2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 cup sour cream
3 tbsp. potato starch
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F /180 degrees C.
Whip egg whites until they begin to turn white; add in one cup of the sugar and continue beating until it is a semi stiff snow. Set aside.
In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with the rest of the sugar until thick. Add the cream cheese, lemon juice, sour cream and potato starch and beat until smooth. By hand, fold the egg whites into this mixture. Pour the batter out into a nine-by-13-inch pan or a 10-inch round-lined spring form pan.
Bake for 50 minutes until golden on top and firm. Turn off the oven but do not remove the cake yet! Leave it sit in the oven until the oven is cool. Remove it carefully and let it finish cooling.
This slices and serves wonderfully as is. However if you want a topping on it....
Topping:
2 cups sour cream
4 tbsp. sugar
Mix together and spread over the cake.
For a nice splash of color, add fresh strawberries or even blueberries on top of the cake. You can even decide to drizzle over some of the strawberry sauce (below) directly before serving each slice.
STRAWBERRY SAUCE
1 lb. (500 g.) fresh strawberries
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. potato starch
2 tbsp. cold water
Clean and purée the strawberries.
In a medium pot over a medium high flame, bring to a boil the sugar, lemon juice, and strawberry purée. Remove it from the heat and let it cool. After it has cooled for 20 minutes, mix together the potato starch and cold water until it is smooth and add it to the still hot/warm sauce. Stir it until the sauce thickens, for about another two minutes. Serve.
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Penny Eisenberg has been a caterer and cooking instructor for more than 20 years. Her specialties include desserts of all kinds, including dairy-free, Jewish and low-fat desserts, Jewish cooking and bread baking. Eisenberg is the author of two cookbooks: Light Jewish Holiday Desserts and Passover Desserts. I was delighted to learn that she just did a complete rewrite of Passover desserts, available only on CD-ROM. The updated recipes are easier, to make for today's lifestyle, and they're easier to use (no flipping from page to page). She also added 50 new photos and drawings. For more information or to order, visit her website at www.pennyeisenberg.com. The following show-stopping dessert is guaranteed to please the guests at your table.
PENNY EISENBERG'S CHOCOLATE FUDGE TORTE
Source: Passover Desserts (CD-ROM edition)
This rich torte has a smooth, creamy texture that just melts in the mouth. A small amount of matzah cake meal has been added to give it a bit of body, but those who don't use matzah cake meal for Passover can leave it out. The cake must be prepared one day in advance.
The torte is pareve or dairy and serves 16 to 20.
20 ounces pareve Passover semisweet chocolate, chopped
10 tbsp. unsalted pareve Passover margarine or butter, room temperature
6 large eggs, room temperature, separated
2 tsp. matzah cake meal
2 tbsp. sugar
Garnish (optional): Passover Richwhip, thawed and whipped (available at kosher food stores) or whipped cream. Chocolate shavings.
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F with a shelf in the middle of the oven. Grease a nine-inch round spring form pan. Place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan. Wrap the outside of the pan with several layers of extra long heavy-duty foil, bringing the edges up over the rim of the pan to secure it. Have ready another baking pan large enough to hold the nine-inch pan with space around to hold water. Boil water in a pot or kettle and set it aside.
2. Place the chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe container. Heat on medium power for one minute. Stir, and continue to heat in 15-second bursts, until the chocolate is melted, stirring to blend the chocolate and margarine together (can also be done in a double-boiler). Using a wire whisk, whisk the egg yolks just to blend. With an electric mixer on low, beat them into the chocolate a little at a time. Beat in the matzah cake meal.
3. Place the egg whites in a clean grease-free bowl. Using clean grease-less beaters beat the egg whites on medium speed until foamy throughout and no longer translucent. Increase the speed to high, gradually add the sugar and continue beating until the whites are stiff but not dry.
4. Stir one-third of the whites into the batter and then gently fold in the remaining whites. Transfer to the prepared nine-inch round pan.
5. Place the pan into the larger pan, and pour boiling water around the pan to come half way up the sides of the nine-inch pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the surface dulls, but the cake still looks uncooked in the centre. Remove from the oven, place on a wire rack and cool completely. Refrigerate overnight.
Decorations (optional): Although the torte can be served whole, topped with whipped topping and chocolate shavings, it is messy to cut and looks prettiest when cut before presenting. Have a pitcher of warm water and a towel handy. Make a cut and rock the knife side to side to make space for its removal. Dip the knife into the warm water, wipe dry and make the second cut. Make small pieces, as the cake is very rich. Repeat with the rest of the torte. Arrange the sections in a circle on a platter, with a small space between each wedge. If desired, pipe whipped topping onto each piece and then sprinkle with chocolate shavings. Shavings can be made using a vegetable peeler and a cold block of chocolate.
Tips: The frozen cake may be defrosted in the refrigerator overnight: let it stand at room temperature 15 minutes before serving. You can make it up to two days in advance and refrigerate it or freeze it for up to three months.
•••
ARTHUR SCHWARTZ'S PASSOVER PAREVE APPLE CAKE
Recipe reprinted with permission from Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited, copyright 2008 (Ten Speed Press)
When this recipe was first given to Arthur Schwartz, it originally specified flour, not matzah cake meal. He didn't think it was very good, but made it a few times anyway, as his family and friends liked it. Obsessing over how to improve the recipe to make it more to his own liking, it dawned on him that someone had converted a perfectly good Passover cake into an everyday cake and that if he converted it back it would be much better. He loves it now, and everyone he has served it to raves about it. One day, he didn't have quite enough ground cinnamon, however, and blended together a substitute with the teaspoon of cinnamon he had, plus ground nutmeg, mace and ginger to fill out the tablespoon measure. That was yet another improvement.
This recipe makes one eight-inch-square cake.
3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup matzah cake meal
5 medium apples, peeled, cored, halved, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (about 5 cups), preferably Golden Delicious, Crispin (Mutzu), or other apples that keep their shape when cooked
1/3 cup raisins (optional)
Topping
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon or a combination of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, mace and ginger
Position an oven rack in the centre of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil an eight-inch-square glass baking dish.
To prepare the topping, mix together the walnuts, sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.
To prepare the cake batter, in a bowl, with a hand-held electric mixer, beat the eggs on medium speed until well mixed. Beat in the sugar, about two tablespoons at a time, beating until the mixture is thick and foamy. Beat in the oil, adding it in a steady stream. Scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula. With the spatula, stir in the matzah cake meal, blending well.
Pour half of the batter mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle about half the topping mixture evenly over the batter. Top with half the apples and all the raisins. Scrape the remaining half of the batter over the apples, spreading it out to cover the apples. Arrange the remaining apples on top of the batter. Sprinkle evenly with the remaining topping mixture.
Bake for one hour and 15 minutes or until the sides of the cake pull away very slightly from the baking dish and the topping has begun to caramelize. (A cake tester is not reliable. It will not come out clean due to the moist richness of this cake.)
Let the cake sit in the baking dish for several hours until completely cool before cutting into serving portions. If you keep the cake in its dish, covered tightly with plastic, the next day, the topping will have become a moist, candy-like coating.
Norene Gilletz is a cookbook author, cooking teacher and food consultant who lives and cooks in Toronto. Her latest book is Norene's Healthy Kitchen (Whitecap). For updated information about her cookbooks, cooking classes and to sample Passover recipes from her cookbooks, visit her website at www.gourmania.com.
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