A Thanksgiving-y Twist on a Haunkkah Classic

Thanksgivukkah has come and gone, but the memory lives on in our hearts, always. One of the nicest things about this holiday (other than my uncle lighting the turkey on fire - long story) has been the little reunion I threw for my camp friends on Friday, which was an excuse for me to buy way too much food, and of course bake shit. It was the perfect opportunity to bake shit than can only be eaten day-of, and that + Hanukkah = donuts, obviously. 

The other day I had some leftover cider, and I was looking for recipes for cider donuts (as one does) and came across a recipe on the wonderful Tartelette. They looked amazing, and lo and behold, they were! I had a hard time keeping the oil at a consistent temperature, but they still came out nice and crispy. I also didn't have an apple corer, but I used a fondant cutter, which made pretty circular star medallions, so score. Plus, the fact that they are made with apples basically makes them fruit, right? My main advice is be sure to whisk your eggs properly into the cider mixture, because mine scrambled a little bit and I had to strain them out. But they were super-delicious, even if they made me want to avoid oily food for the rest of the day, which was problematic when the latkes came along. Worth it, though! You can find the recipe here.

Ethnic Flavor: Aaaaples and Crisco for Rosh Hashanah

So the chagim (the many Jewish holidays that come one after the other in September and October) are finally over. Every year, it seems like they’ll never end, and then they do, and you’re like, huh, a small part of me misses them. But it’s a pretty small part.

One of the more fun parts about the chagim is the eating. Well, not on Yom Kippur. But whether you’re sitting at the dining room table or in a hut, there are plenty of festive holiday meals. This year, Rosh Hashanah was made doubly special by the fact that it fell on our dad’s birthday, and our mom requested that I make him a special holiday/birthday cake. (It was also a co-cake for our Uncle Joel, whose birthday had been the previous week.) I thought about it for a good long while and then – eureka! – remembered a tasty cake that my friend Nathan once shared with me when we came back to college after Rosh Hashanah senior year. Obviously it was a very delicious cake, to have stuck with me for the last two years. It was an apple cake, which is traditional for Rosh Hashanah. (We eat apples and honey for a sweet new year, get it?) So I e-mailed him and he kindly sent me the recipe. I knew it would be delicious but I wanted to add a little spruce to it, it being a double-birthday cake and all. Caramel glaze or frosting seemed the natural thing, but because we were having meat, I was concerned that it wouldn’t work out, as caramel is rather dependent on cream and butter. Luckily, I was able to dig up a surprisingly delicious recipe for vegan caramel frosting. It used the dreaded Crisco, for which I normally would substitute margarine, but I figured that one probably shouldn’t screw around with vegan recipes, which are already dicey at best. And then it was lucky that I had made the frosting, because we pretty much had to glue the cake back together when it came out of the pan, and it looked much nicer frosted.

The most fun part about this recipe was getting to use my dad’s apple peeler-corer-slicer, the latest in apple peeling-coring-slicing technology. It took me an embarrassingly long time and the help of my heroic father to learn how to use it, but once I did, it was so fun! I highly recommend using one if you are going to make a recipe with a lot of apples, like this one.

Me, coring/peeling/slicing apples

Neat!

The cake, despite being in pieces, came out just as yummy as I had remembered it being in the fall of 2010. There were a lot of desserts at that festive holiday meal, but this cake was by far the most popular! Serve it at your next apple-related event! (Perhaps a Steve Jobs memorial service? Haw haw haw.)

Ruth Margolin's Apple Cake

5 apples (tart, like Granny Smith)

2 t cinnamon

5 T sugar

3 C flour

3 t baking powder

2 C sugar

2-½ t vanilla

1 C oil

1 t salt

4 eggs

¼ C orange juice

Peel the apples, and cut into slices.  Sprinkle with the cinnamon and the 5 T sugar, and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the remaining ingredients together until smooth.

Grease a large tube pan.  (Either use a Baker’s Joy type spray that includes flour, or grease the pan and then dust it with sugar.)

Pour half the batter into the prepared pan.  Place half the apple mixture on top.  Pour on remaining batter, spreading to cover apples.  Top with remaining apples.  (There will be some sweetened juice in the apple bowl; you can drizzle it over the apples.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 1-¼ hours.  Let stand 15 minutes and then remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.

You can find the frosting recipe here.

A Festive New Years/Shabbat Treat

Are you looking for something delicious and festive, but not too heavy, to serve after Shabbat dinner this week in honor of New Year's Eve?  Look no further because this icy, apple treat is for you.  It is crisp and light, and can be made parve if you are kosher and having a meat dinner.

I am a big fan of Matinelli's sparkling cider.  I don't drink it that much but I saw it in the grocery store on sale, 2 for $5 and it seemed like a good time to make David Lebovitz's Green Apple and Sparkling Cider Sorbet, which I have had my eye on since I got the book.  

This sorbet was a snap to put together, as most sorbets are.  You boil the cider, sugar and some water together, then dump in some apples and let it all sit until the apples are soft.  The only hard part was pushing the apple mixture through a strainer, so that you got all the flavor and none of the lumps.  Then you are good to churn.    

The sparkling cider adds nice flavor to the sorbet, but that bubbly feeling is lost. Since the bubbles are half the fun, Sarah and I decided to put the sorbet in a glass with a splash of cider over it.  That way, you get the bubbles and the flavor and a festive, New Year's Look.

Happy New Year and Shabbat Shalom!  May 2011 bring you and your family many blessings.

Here is the recipe, from The Perfect Scoop:

Sparking Cinder and Green Apple Sorbet

4 Granny Smith or green pippin apples (2 pounds), preferably unsprayed

2 cups sparkling dry apple cider, with or without alcohol

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, or to taste

Quarter the apples and remove the cores and seeds. Cut the unpeeled apples into 1-inch chunks.

Combine the cider, sugar and water, and bring to a boil in a medium, nonreactive saucepan. Add the apples, reduce the heat to low and cover. Simmer the apple chunks for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the apples steep until the mixture is room temperature.

Pass the apples and their liquid through a food mill fitted with a fine disk, or use a coarse-mesh strainer and press firmly on the apples to extract their pulp and all the liquid into a container. Discard the apple peels — they've given up their flavor at this point. Add the lemon juice. Taste and add more if you wish, since sparkling apple ciders can vary in sweetness.

Chill the mixture thoroughly, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacture's instructions.

Makes about 3 cups.

Guest Blogger: More on the Wedding

As the Baking Sisters’ dad, I obviously wasn’t invited to the Shabbos Kallah (see the Shabbos Kallah post). I did get to participate in – and bake for – another wonderful Jewish wedding custom: sheva brachot (seven blessings). These blessings are first recited as part of the wedding ceremony and then are repeated as part of grace after meals at celebrations in honor of the bride and groom for the following seven days. We hosted two dozen guests one evening in honor of Miriam and Dave. I won’t go into the full menu, just the desserts.

Four desserts seemed to offer enough variety, so I went with two chocolate and two non-chocolate recipes. Since the meal was a stand-up reception, everything was finger food, including the desserts: two kinds of cookies and two bar-type desserts (which I cut in half to make bite-size servings and served in mini-cupcake wrappers). All the recipes came from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours. And if I don’t say so myself, everything was delicious!

I chose two classic cookie recipes. My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies are exactly what the name says. They’re Toll House cookies, but turbocharged. Buy a block of the best bittersweet chocolate you can find (or afford) and chop it into chunks, chips, slivers, whatever. I even included the shavings that the chopping produced; they made for great color in the finished product. You’ll find the recipe below.

The other classic cookies were Linzer Sablés, a wonderful sandwich cookie with an almond-based dough and a raspberry jam filling. Dusted with powdered sugar, they are both elegant and delicious, and not too sweet. The recipe is below.

The Bittersweet Brownies were almost like eating fudge – only better. They, too, call for the best chocolate you can get. Here is a link to the recipe.

I wanted something fruit-based for the fourth dessert, so I chose Applesauce Spice Bars. They have a wonderful combination of flavors and textures – spices and rum, applesauce and chopped apple, raisins and nuts – and are topped with a creamy glaze. Here is a link to the recipe.

My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs
12 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks and chips
1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking
sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda.

Working with a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in
a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed for about 1 minute, until smooth.
Add the sugars and beat for another 2 minutes or so, until well blended. Beat in
the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each egg goes in.
Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients in 3 portions, mixing
only until each addition is incorporated. On low speed, or by hand with a rubber
spatula, mix in the chocolate and nuts.

Spoon the dough by slightly rounded tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets, leaving
about 2 inches between spoonfuls (the cookies really spread as they bake!).

Bake the cookies – one sheet at a time and rotating the sheet at the midway point –
for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they are brown at the edges and golden in the center
(they may still be a little soft in the middle). Pull the sheet from the oven and allow
the cookies to rest for 1 minute, then carefully, using a wide metal spatula, transfer
them to racks to cool to room temperature.

Repeat with the remainder of the dough, cooling the baking sheets between batches.

Linzer Sablés
1-1/2 cups finely ground almonds
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
Scant 1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 large egg
2 tsp water
1 stick (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup raspberry jam plus 1 tsp water
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Whisk together the ground nuts, flour, cinnamon, salt and cloves. Using a fork, stir

the egg and water together in a small bowl.

Working with a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer
in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together at medium speed until smooth,
about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add the egg mixture and beat
for 1 minute more. Reduce the speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing
only until they disappear into the dough. Don’t work the dough much once the flour
is incorporated. If the dough comes together but some dry crumbs remain in the
bottom of the bowl, stop the mixer and finish blending the ingredients with a rubber
spatula or your hands.

Divide the dough in half. Working with one half at a time, put the dough between
a sheet of waxed paper and plastic wrap. Using your hands, flatten the dough into
a disk, then use a rolling pin to roll out the dough until it is about 1/4 inch thick.
Leave the dough between the waxed paper and plastic wrap and repeat with the
second piece of dough. Transfer the wrapped dough to a baking sheet or cutting
board (to keep it flat) and refrigerate or freeze until it is very firm (about 2 hours in
the refrigerator or about 45 minutes in the freezer). The rolled-out dough can be
wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and in the freezer
for up to 2 months –thaw just enough to cut out the cookies.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking
sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Peel off the plastic wrap from one piece of dough and, using a 2-inch round or
scalloped cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as you can. If you want a peek-a-
boo cutout to see the jam filling, using the end of a piping tip to cut a small circle
from the centers of half the cookies. Transfer the cookies to the baking sheets,
leaving a little space between the cookies. Set the scraps aside.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 11 to 13 minutes, or until the cookies
are lightly golden, dry and just firm to the touch. NOTE: If the cookies are not of
uniform thickness, the thinner ones will bake much faster, so keep a close eye on
them.

Repeat with the second disk of dough, making sure to cool the baking sheets
between batches. Gather the scraps of dough from both batches, press them into
a disk, roll them between a sheetsof waxed paper and plastic wrap and refrigerate
them as before, then cut and bake.

Place the jam in a small saucepan or in a microwaveable bowl and stir in 1 tsp of
water. Bring to a boil over low heat or in the microwave. Let the jam cool slightly,
then turn the cookies without the cutout flat side up and place about 1/2 tsp of the

jam in the center of each cookie; sandwich with the remaining cookies.

Just before serving, dust with confectioners’ sugar. Store at room temperature, or
freeze without the sugar dusting (dust the cookies before serving).

Some Sweet Ideas for a Sweet New Year

It's hard to believe, but Rosh Hashanah is almost upon us.  Every year I say -- the holidays come up so quickly, but this year it is really true.  Two days after labor day, Jews all around the world will be crowding their synagogues to celebrate the new year.  One of the main traditions of Rosh Hashanah is to eat apples and honey, so that the year ahead will be sweet.  This can translate into many things -- from honey cake to apple pie to any sweet confection.  


A few weeks ago, we were in Santa Fe.  We went to the farmer's market, where it happend to be honey bee awareness week and there was a table with bees and a vendor selling delicious honey (we bought a number of jars and I hope to make something delicious with it, or just eat it on a nice, tart apple).  As you can see, my son was fascinated by the bees and we spent a long time at that table.

I haven't decided what to bake yet this year, but we thought we would leave you with a Rosh Hashanah Round Up, in case you plan further ahead than I do.  Enjoy these recipes and have a Shanah tovah u'metukah (a good and sweet new year).  Feel free to leave a comment with your favorite Rosh Hashanah or fall recipe.  Perhaps I will be inspired to make it!

An obvious and delicious apple treat...Apple Pie!

Moist and delicious Applesauce Spice Bars from Dorie Greenspan.  You can't go wrong with these and, if you are going to someone else's house, they travel pretty well.

If you want to enjoy the end of summer fruits a little longer, this Dimply Plum Cake (also from Dorie) is a perfect Rosh Hashanah treat.

If you want something light and easy, this Applesauce and Green Tea cake from Kosher By Design Lightens Up fits the bill.  It would be a delicious and not at all heavy ending to a holiday meal.

If you want to go for something chocolate, try our go-to parve chocolate cake (since holiday meals are often meat) or, if you are looking for something quick but delicious or something that would be good to have around as a holiday snack, a classic mandelbrot always goes over well.

And let's not forget challah...

Rosh Hashanah challah's are usually round, to symbolize the roundness of the world and the cycle of life.  You can make either of these recipes into round challahs (much easier than braiding!) 

Challah Recipe #1

Challah Recipe #2

Get Your Antioxidants: Dessert Style

I have a few theories about why I was the sister who was originally left off of the blog. The first is that my sisters like to gang up on me. The second is that I was not living with them at the time that the blog was conceived. The third is that, unlike Rebecca and Sarah, I do get a little squeamish about recipes that call for endless amounts of butter. And the fourth is that I lack much of their fancy equipment and patience for baking things that require endless steps.


So while the truth may never be known, this green tea and applesauce cake from Kosher by Design Lightens Up that I made is an excellent rebuttal to those who would say that baking has to be complicated, and that things have to be bad for you to taste good. This cake is more of a spice cake than anything else, and I really love the flavors of ginger and cinnamon that flavor the lightness of the cake. Susie Fishbein writes about the benefits of the antioxidants in green tea, but mostly, I would recommend this cake because it's delicious.


I've made this cake three times now, and this time I finally got it right. It's really easy to make-- the challenge is just making sure that you bake it for just the right amount of time. Otherwise, it ends up either a little dry, or kind of raw in the middle. I haven't tried this yet, but my hunch is that it would also make some really delicious muffins.

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Green Tea-Applesauce Cake From Kosher-by-Design Lightens Up, by Susie Fishbein Ingredients: Topping: 1/3 cup coarsly chopped raw, blanched almonds 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon Cake: 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons almond or vanilla soy milk 1 green tea bag 1 1/4 cups unsweetened applesauce 1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil 1/4 cup honey 1 large egg, slightly beaten 1 2/3 cup flour 1/3 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon cornstarch 2 teaspoons baking soda 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves Icing (optional): 1/3 cup powdered sugar 1-2 teaspoons remaining brewed tea Directions: Make the topping by combining the almonds, brown sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon. Set aside. Spray a 9-inch round springform pan with non-stick cooking spray. Preheat oven to 325. In a small saucepot, heat soy milk over medium heat just until bubbles start to form around the edge of the pot. Remove from the heat and add the tea bag. Let steep for 3-4 minutes; stir to make sure it steeps, and then remove the bag. In a small bowl, combine the applesauce, oil, honey and egg. Set aside. Sift together the flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, cornstarch, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and cloves. Add the applesauce mix and 1/2 cup of the brewed tea. Stir just until combined. Pour in the prepared pan and sprinkle the topping evenly over the cake. Bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Make the icing: In a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar and 1-2 teaspoons of the remaining brewed tea. Stir until the lumps are gone and it is of good drizzling consistency. With a small spoon, drizzle the icing in a zigzag pattern over the cake. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie

Before we begin this post, I would like to welcome our sister Rachel to our blog, and put forth a potential new name for our blog (courtesy of my friend Ben): "Baking with the Matriarchs."

Okay, on to business. Big news (that's also old news, but I don't think I've ever mentioned it on the blog) - I, Sarah, will spending the next semester in Cambridge, England. This is very exciting. It is also faintly worrisome, since on top of all the other things I have to be anxious about, I don't know if I'll have access to an oven! Oh no! According to the lady in charge of logistics, "Your accommodation will have a small, shared kitchen or 'gyp' room in which you can prepare small meals (there are cooking restrictions)." What this means is an enigma, chock-full of intrigue and British slang such as "'gyp' room." Mysterious!

In any case, as any Harry Potter reader knows, British people eat weird food like pumpkin pasties, black pudding and something called "spotted dick." Before I depart to this strange land, I was thinking about some uniquely American dishes, and nothing is more American than apple pie. Plus, my suitemates and I make pie at least once a year (usually on Pi Day, which I don't think they have in Britain since they write the date as 14.3 instead of 3.14), so why should this year be an exception? We always make the same pie. The recipe comes from my suitemate/love of my life, Emily Li, and it is the simplest, most fool-proof and yet most delicious pie in the universe - probably because it's filled with looooove. One time that we made it, we did not have a single correct ingredient, and yet it was still the best pie we had ever made...UNTIL NOW.

We do some variations, especially for the filling. For instance, sometimes we use pears; we usually throw in whatever spices we have around (in this case, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice) plus brown sugar - they balance each other out very nicely. We mostly make a lattice top covered in cinnamon sugar, except last year for Pi Day when we made 3.14 slits in it and used chocolate chips to make a "Pi" sign. Basically, we are dorks.

But back to this pie. I am quite certain that it's the best one we ever made. Even though none of us were very hungry, Emily, Devon and I ended up eating about a third of the pie by ourselves. Both the crust and the filling are totally rich and satisfying. It's incredible that something so simple could come out tasting so good. I have no idea where it came from, but it is surely a keeper

Emily's Apple Pie

For the pie:
1.5 cups of flour
2 sticks of cold butter
6 tablespoons of warm water

For the filling:
5 apples (we used Macintosh - you can also include pears)
1/3 cups flour
Brown sugar, to taste
Whatever spices you feel like using (we used cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg)
1 tsp. of lemon juice
Cinnamon sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the butter into the flour using your fingers until some are the size of crumbs and some are the size of peas. Add the water and mix with a fork until it comes together. Divide the dough in half - there's no need to chill it. Take one half and press into the pie pan.

Peel, core and slice the apples. Toss the pieces in the flour, sugar and spices and dump them into the pie. Use the other half of the dough to create a lattice, then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake until the apples are soft and the pie is golden-brown, about 35-40 minutes.

An Autumn Treat

"Friday evenings, people get together,
Hiding from the weather.
Tea and toasted, buttered currant buns
Can't compensate for lack of sun,
Because the summer's all gone."

It's fall in Rhode Island. That means the leaves are turning, the weather is brisk, the sun goes in and out all day, and it's time for some crisp New England apples. I love fall so much. It's my favorite season, except all the other ones. No, really, I couldn't pick a favorite season because I love them all! That's why I could never live in a place that has no seasons, like California. To me, there's nothing better than sitting underneath a big oak tree on the Main Green with a book while the leaves fall all around you- unless it's catching snowflakes with your tongue in winter, or watching the cherry blossoms come out in spring, or having a picnic on a warm summer evening. But each time a new season rolls around, I get convinced that it's the best season, and it's been the same this fall. It's the kind of weather that makes you want to wear some wine-colored corduroys and brown boots and walk around listening to "Autumn Almanac" while staring up at the foliage (all of which I did today, thank you!).

Yesterday was the weekly Brown Farmers' Market. After buying my customary baguette from the Seven Stars Bakery stand and my customary brownie from...that lady who makes really delicious fudgy brownies (gotta get my hands on that recipe), I espied some applesauce at the Hill Orchard stand, and I immediately thought of this recipe.

I had always wanted to make Dorie's Applesauce Spice Bars from page 117 of Baking from My Home to Yours, because the picture just looked incredibly enticing.

The picture

But the number of ingredients in the recipe always threw me. Now that I've made it, I realize it's not that many ingredients, but said ingredients included applesauce, which is not my favorite and is not something that I usually have around (especially now that I'm back at school and back to ghetto baking. I'll take a picture of my "pantry" one day and you'll laugh.) Yet I obtained applesauce, and I had some heavy cream left over from my friend Warren's birthday cake, so I was all set.

These were easy-peasy to make. Though peeling, coring and chopping the Cortland apple was as annoying as such tasks always are, the dough came together beautifully. I left out the optional alcohol (since I'm not 21) and the raisins (since they just didn't seem necessary), but everything was fine with just the apples and pecans.

Better than fine, in fact. These were the reactions the bars inspired:

"Mmm. Mmmm! MMMMM!" -My suitemate Devon

"Rebecca, I just found a recipe that we NEED to make when you come home." -Me, on the phone with Rebecca

And perhaps most indicative of all: I cut fifteen bars. Before I left at 4:00, Devon ate one and I ate one. When I came back, there were four left. Now, there are three girls in my suite besides me. They are all very thin. They think that cauliflower makes the perfect dessert. They're in Running Club. This is not to make them out as anorexics — in fact, they dutifully eat everything I bake. But this is definitely a record.

Everything about these bars makes them perfect for fall. They're cake-like in texture, very moist (although that may just be the dorm oven's chronic tendency to undercook things.) I used Cortland apples, which held up extremely well in the baking- they're practically still juicy, and I love the way they taste with the pecans. Originally, I was going to make another batch of glaze because I thought it was spread too thin, but I was out of brown sugar, and now I'm glad. The glaze is delicious, but its sweetness might have overwhelmed the subtlety of the flavor. If you love baking, apples, fall or all things sweet and good in this world, make these applesauce spice bars!