Passover in a Pinch: Recipe Ideas

This year both Passover and Easter fall on the same weekend which means lots of people around the world will be entertaining and sharing meals with friends and family.  I am going low-key this year attending a seder in the city on Friday and an Easter lunch the following day.  I am looking forward to both.

Like any entertaining event, the question of what to serve typically comes down to the following bitter pill:  Do I stick to the tried, tested and favourites of my guests or do I bust out a new set of recipes and go wild?  I personally prefer the later options but I understand that there is some comfort and simplicity in remaking the same dishes year after year that you know will please your crowd.  Either way someone will complain but don’t let that deter you from running your seder your way!  Entertain in a way that gives you pleasure and enjoyment.

If you are prepping to host or attend a seder on Friday or Saturday night and are in need of some inspiration on what to make or bring, I thought I would share a couple of my favourite ideas that I’ve been impressed with on Pinterest this week.  Since it’s Thursday and Passover begins tomorrow night at sundown, these ideas will hopefully help you out if you are in a pinch!  I think the chocolate matzoh shot (picture three) looks divine!

Dad Dines @ Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink

Happy Friday.  I am so happy the weekend is here.  The sun is shining and I read the temperature is expected to climb to 20 degrees by the end of the weekend.  Prague’s good weather is nothing to compare to sunny and 27 degrees in Miami of course but what can you do?

Next up on the Dad Dine’s series, I received a recommendation for Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink, a restaurant located in Miami’s design district.  Since arriving in December, my dad has returned to this place several times to eat as it focuses on fresh, local ingredients, has a nice ambiance with indoor and outdoor seating (good for people watching), zero pretentiousness (his words) and the desserts are “a masterpiece.”

It is a given that morning, noon and night, Michaels’ is a popular spot to dine (see how many people have reviewed it on Yelp) but what really stood out to me is the talent behind the restaurant’s well crafted desserts.  It turns out, Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink pastry chef, Hedy Goldsmith, is a going concern in the pastry world.  She was recently nominated as a semi-finalist for outstanding pastry chef for the prestigious James Beard Foundation Award and is releasing her first book titled “Baking Out Loud” in October of this year (you can pre-order it now on Amazon).  This book is definitely going on my wish list for later in 2012.  I know the French toast below looks out of this world. 🙂

Photo Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

On a separate food note, has anyone heard of the website: New York Mouth? If you are into artisanal food and supporting small food producers, this might be your new favourite site.  It’s a neat concept; one that I may need to devote some more writing space to on this blog.

Have a great weekend.

Chocolate beet cake with beet buttercream

I had a blast testing out a chocolate beet cake for Valentine’s day from Joy the Baker.  I was a bit skeptical at first as I have never baked with beets before but to be quite honest, it was no different that working with carrots for carrot cake.  It just took a few more steps because you had to roast, peel and grate the beets into a usable form.

Note, that Joy’s recipe called to make the cake with a beet cream cheese frosting.  The cream cheese situation in Prague, as far as I can tell, is not great and so I swapped cream cheese frosting for a beet buttercream which was just as tasty.  The cake turned out quite moist and fluffy and did not have an earthy flavour that I sort of expected from the beets.  I would totally make this cake again, it was a hit in my house and at the office. Let me know if you try it.

Here are some step by step shots on preparing and icing your cake:

Recipe (adapted) from Joy the Baker

The Chocolate Beet Cake Recipe:

2 medium beets, unpeeled (I ended up roasting 4 just in case since my beets were on the smaller side)
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing the pans
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk  (I used regular milk- could not find buttermilk at the grocery store)

For the beets:
You need to roast the beets (as you normally would) in the oven. Let them cool, peel and grate until you have the desired amount.

For the cake: (I followed this part exactly from Joy’s recipe- it turned out beautifully)
Set oven to 350F or 180C.  In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars. Beat on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, for one minute after each addition. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Once eggs are incorporated, beat in beets and vanilla extract until thoroughly combined.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Add half of the dry ingredients to the butter and egg mixture. Beating on low speed, slowly add the buttermilk. Once just incorporated, add the other half of the dry ingredients. Beat on medium speed until milk and dry ingredients are just incorporated. Try not to over mix the batter. Bowl can be removed from the mixer and mixture folded with a spatula to finish incorporating ingredients. Cake batter will be on the thick side… not pourable.

Divide the batter between the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 23 to 25 minutes (for a 9-inch pan) or 30-32 minutes (for an 8-inch pan). Cake is done when a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove cakes from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting and assembling the cake.

The beet buttercream recipe:
I tend to eyeball my butter cream recipes because I go after a specific taste but here is

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 to 5 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons finely grated beets
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 teaspoons milk, depending on desired consistency
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Beat the butter and slowly add in the powdered sugar (turn down the speed or the sugar will go flying). Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy (5 min at least). Add in the beets, vanilla, milk and lemon juice (if you want) and keep tasting and mixing until you have the flavour and balance between sweet and butter that you prefer.

Hamantashen Madness

In case you haven’t been following my blog posts this week, I’ve been living in hamantashen hell.  Maybe a slight exaggeration but pretty close to it.

A couple weeks ago, my fiance traveled to Tel Aviv for business. While researching restaurants and dried fruit stores in the city, we came across an article published in the New York Times about modern flavours of hamantashen and this Tel Aviv bakery who was spicing up the holiday cookie.

Upon his return, we came up with the idea that we should jointly bake hamantashen for Purim and get in the festive mood.  The problem was that neither of us have made hamantashen since we were eight years old, so we had to first locate a recipe suitable for experimentation.  I had a big bag of poppy seeds sitting around on my counter so I flipped through some cookbooks and Googled “poppy seed hamantashen recipe” to get some ideas.  We decided to narrow our selection down to three recipes and bake three batches to see which one was the best.

During my preliminary research, I came across two comical posts from Smitten Kitchen (here &  here)  sharing her experiences in making these fun haman’s hat cookies. (Not soo easy) I also found some enticing recipes from the New York Times Hamantashen with Poppy Seed Filling, Seattle Times Orange Poppy Seed Hamantashen and Epicurious’s Traditional Hamantashen recipe.  We planned it all out: One hamantashen recipe a day for three days and then taste test.

Here are the results:

#1 Traditional Hamantashen recipe from Epicurious:

This dough was falling apart.  It was cracking, dry and crumbly.  I ended up adding more liquid (orange juice) just to get it to hold together.  I also burnt the first batch because my oven was hotter than the recipe, so I ended up reducing the time to 10 min on the second batch which worked out better.  These hamantashen tasted good (I used apricot jam from the jar because I was so frustrated with the dough and wanted the experience to come to an end) but this recipe was a pain.

#2 NY Times Hamantashen Recipe:

A much better recipe than the Epicurious recipe but the dough was still quite crumbly and hard to work with.  I did like the fact that the recipe called for butter instead of shortening and liked the powdered sugar instead of regular sugar.  After mixing all the ingredients, the dough seemed to have a nice consistency but for some reason, it still broke apart.  This cookie had a lemon flavour instead of orange rind and juice which worked well with my thick apricot jam filling.  Half way through baking, I tried a looser cherry jam upon my fiance’s request, and these things literally exploded in the oven and came out as red blobs, plastered to the baking sheet.  Conclusion: The dough was not strong enough to handle a more liquid filling.  Close but no cigar- still tasty though.

#3 Kinnereth Cookbook (and the winner)- The perfect dough recipe.  It was moist, easy to roll and the edges stayed smooth on the cookies.  As for the filling, I had to do some major alterations to the poppy seed mixture to get it to a thicker consistency.  I ended up adding dates and walnuts on top of the lemon juice, honey and sugar.  (recipe below).  If I were to make this recipe again, I would add lemon or orange rind to the dough for just a hint of flavour since right now the dough is rather plain.  However, I’ll take plain with a hint of sweet over crumbling, disaster dough any day.

From the Kinnereth Cookbook

For Cookie Dough:

3 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
3 eggs
1 egg beaten for brushing dough

Preheat oven to 400F or 200C.  Sift flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together.  Cut in butter.  Beat in eggs and mix to a soft dough.  Roll out on a floured board to 1/4″ in thickness.  Cut with a round cookie cutter or glass. Spoon desired filling in the centre and pinch circle together to form a triangle shape.  Brush with beaten egg and place on a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Bake for 12-15 min.  Mine only needed 10 minutes to come out golden but it depends on your oven.

Poppy Seed Filling:

1/2 pound of poppy seeds (225 grams)
1/2 cup honey
juice and rind of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup granulated sugar
I added 6 dates and 1/3 cup of walnuts (play around with quantity)

Scald poppy seeds with boiling water two or three times.  This tripped me up.  I boiled water, soaked the poppy seeds and put them in the food processor to grind.  It didn’t work.  There was still too much liquid.  I read that putting them through a coffee grinder (unsoaked) is better than a food processor but I did not try this method.  Basically blend all the ingredients together until you have a pseudo-paste that can hold its shape on the dough.  If it is too liquid, you risk hamantashen overflow or explosion, so pay attention to the consistency.

You really could fill these cookies with just about anything like stewed apples, cherries, prunes, dates, jam, or chocolate.  Be creative.  It’s the dough that makes or breaks the recipe.

And so our story ends with hamantashen for all.  I am retiring my hamantashen baking until next March.  If you are feeling ambitious and want to try a recipe, let me save you from hardship.  Stick with the Kinnereth!!!!

Pasam Baklava: Berlin

Every time I travel to a new city, I make a point of familiarizing myself with the bloggers who write about the city I am visiting before venturing to other sources such as newspaper and magazine travel sections.  I feel the blogger perspective is closer to the street and perhaps a little more objective than traditional media sources, although don’t get me wrong, the Guardian’s review of Berlin’s top cafes and bakeries was awesome and extremely helpful in figuring out which spots to visit in the city.

While reading about Berlin, I discovered the city has a sizable Turkish population and Anadolu Market (Turkish market).  Keeping in the vein of Turkish food, a handful of Berlin bloggers reviewed Pasam Baklava as THE place to go for baklava in the city.  Since I have a sweet spot for baklava (as did my travel companions), I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pay this bakery a visit.  We drove to Pasam 30 minutes before it was due to close and when we arrived, we had the entire place to ourselves.  The three of us, like kids in a candy shop, excitedly pressed our fingers up against the glass standing between us and the colourful trays of baklava.

I have never seen so many types before and they were so beautifully laid out in massive trays the entire length of the counter. I am only acquainted with the traditional baklava made of phyllo dough layered with cinnamon, nuts and honey. At Pasam, we decided to make the most of the experience and try one of everything.  Or at least nearly one of everything.  We tried sarma with pistachios (the first picture below), sobiyet (also photo below), kadayif which is like a square of thin noodles held together with something sweet, as well as Turkish baklava and some cookies.

After the decadently sweet and delicious experience at Pasam in Berlin, I think I need to take a course on Turkish desserts or get myself to Istanbul sometime soon, so I can learn more about the different varieties of what I ate.  I still can’t differentiate them all but I assure you, with a cup of tea, they were to die for.

Other bloggers who reviewed Pasam Baklava in Berlin include:

Berlin Reified: Perfect Baklava at Yorckstrasse

(The Wednesday Chef) Berlin on a Platter: Pasam Balkava

The Colour of Pomegranates: Satisfying a sweet tooth at Pasam Baklava

New Trend: Dessert in a Jar

You heard it here first.  The trend is coming- desserts in a jar.

What’s not to love.  They are portable. They are filled with delicious goodness.  They are fun and they are attractive. Feast your eyes on these beauties below!!

On a non-dessert note, we had a delicious dinner tonight braised chicken with black olives, onions and tomatoes with roasted brussels sprouts and a mixed cabbage salad with cherries, apples and carrots.