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Tag Archives: desserts

Peanut Butter Crunch Ice Cream

Ingredients

Crunch

300 grams OR 10 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
½ cup peanut butter
Melt these two items together. While it is still warm, stir in 1 and 1/2 cups
cornflakes or rice krispies. Mix this well.

Ice Cream Base

6 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
2 packets of vanilla sugar (2 Tablespoons of vanilla sugar)
2 Rich’s whip, whipped

Method

Crunch:

Line a flat baking tray with baking parchment paper and spread the chocolate peanut butter mix on it. After it has hardened, break the chocolate into small bits and then it is ready for use in your ice cream. Small bits are important or else it will be hard to bite into when it’s frozen!!.

Ice cream base:

Separate the eggs. Beat the whites until stiff. In a separate bowl, beat the yolks with the sugar until it turns thick and yellow. Pour this out into the whites. Using the yolks’ bowl, beat up the Rich’s whips. Fold all mixtures together and then add in the pieces of hardened chocolate/ peanut butter crunch and fold this in as well. Pour the ice cream mix into 9×13 pan or large plastic container and freeze until solid.

Almond-Apple Cake

A moist cake with only the goodness of apples used as sweetener. Great for Rosh Hashanah! Submitted by Toby Weinper of Hamodia Magazine

Makes 1 round cake, 16 pieces

Ingredients

3 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup unsweetened apple juice concentrate (canned)
2 & 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon each cinnamon and ginger (optional)
1 & 1/2 cups ground almonds
2 apples, peeledtill warm, stir in 1 and 1/2 cups

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C.

Grease and flour a 10-inch round baking pan. Beat the eggs until they are frothy and have expanded in volume. Continue beating and add the oil in a thin stream. Add applesauce and apple juice concentrate.

In a separate bowl or a plastic bag, combine flour, baking soda, spices if using and almonds. Add to the batter and beat until well -combined. Dice one of the apples and mix into batter. Pour the batter into the pan. Slice the second apple into slices and use it to decorate the top of the cake, by layering it on top

Bake the cake for about 40 minutes or until the cake tests done when pierced in its center. Let the cake cool on a rack for 15 minutes before turning it out of the pan.

Nutritional Information per piece: Calories 250, Protein 5g, Carbohydrates 37g ,Fat 9.7g, Saturated Fat 1g ,Sodium 62mg , Fiber 2.5

Crushed Peanut Cookies

These are NOT a peanut-butter cookie!

Makes about 50-60 cookies of the size shown in the photo.

Ingredients

4 eggs
1 cup oil
1¼ cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 teaspoons baking powder
small pinch of salt
5½ cups flour (you may need a bit more if the dough is too sticky)
200 grams shelled, unsalted peanuts, with the brown skins on, ground
1 cup regular sized chocolate chips

Method

Yes, readers, I have used this basic cookie recipe before. but there are so many great things you can do without margarine, that I am using it again here. If you haven’t saved the recipe before, save it now!

Preheat oven to 350° F/180° C.

In your mixer, beat the eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla, baking powder and the tiny bit of salt. Mix well. Add in the flour gradually until you have a smooth cookie dough. Pluck off a small piece of dough and roll it on your palm. (If it sticks to your hands, add in a bit more flour, perhaps 2 more tablespoons, until the dough is smooth, but this dough is almost always smooth as is.)

Process peanuts with the sharp metal “S” blade only until they are small bits, but not a powder. Set aside.

To shape cookies, pull off small bits of dough and roll them into balls. The cookies look nicest when they are miniature sized as shown. Larger sized cookies mean fewer per batch and they are less attractive. Flatten slightly with your thumb. Roll the cookies in the crushed peanuts, then lay them out on parchment-paper-lined cookie trays. Bake two trays at a time in preheated oven for 8-9 minutes until very slightly browned. Remove immediately from oven. Before they cool down, quickly take three chocolate chips and press them down into each cookie’s center. If you wait even a few minutes, the chocolate chips won’t go into the cookies and they won’t “stick.” Repeat this process until you have used all your cookie dough and the necessary amount of chocolate chips.

As the cookies cool, transfer the first 2 trays of cookies onto shallow pans or trays and slide them uncovered into the freezer to set while you do the next 2 trays. By the time the next two trays are out of the oven and chocolate chips inserted, the first 2 trays will have hardened in your freezer. Now you can remove them safely to plastic bags for freezing, without squashing the soft and warm chocolate chip center in the process.

Sprinkle Cookie Sticks

Makes about 70 small sticks

Ingredients

4 eggs
1 cup oil
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
5 1/2 cups flour (you may need a bit more if the dough is too sticky)

Method

Preheat the oven to 350° F/180° C.

In your mixer, beat together eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla, baking powder and the tiny bit of salt. Mix well. Add in the flour gradually until you have a smooth cookie dough. Pluck off a small piece of dough and roll it on your palm. If it sticks to your hands, add in a bit more flour, perhaps 2 more tablespoons, until the dough is smooth. This dough is almost always smooth just the way it is and you don’t need to add more flour.

Now start shaping cookies. Pull off pieces of dough and gently roll each piece into a thin log with your hands. Cut the logs into equal lengths so that your finished cookies will look the same. If you make the pieces too thick or too long, you will wind up with fewer cookies and they will not be attractive.

Line the sticks up on your baking paper-lined tray. You should be able to place a lot of cookie sticks on the tray at once because although they do puff up, it’s not by much.

Slide the trays into the preheated oven and bake the cookies until they are slightly browned, about 10- minutes, sometimes even less than 10 minutes. (Overbaking will net you a too-crunchy, not-as-tasty cookie, so time it right.) Remove the trays in turn and allow the cookies to cool.

Now you can decorate them. Another time saver that I do is when I’m pressed for time and can’t bake and decorate on the same day, I first bake all the cookies and then freeze them away. Then, a different day when I can sit still for an hour, that is when I will take them out to do the next step. In fact, the decorating can even be done while they are still frozen, so there’ no waiting time involved.

Melt some plain, semi-sweet pareve chocolate in a bowl via your microwave or in a double-boiler. Pour some sprinkles into a small bowl and have it nearby. Layer a tray with baking parchment and now you are ready to begin.

Dip the end of each cookie stick into the melted chocolate. Let the chocolate drip off a bit, but while it is still wet, roll it quickly into the sprinkles so that the sprinkles stick to the chocolate. Lay each finished cookie down on the clean baking parchment to dry and continue with the next cookie until all are done. Freeze on the tray until the chocolate has hardened. Now you can place them in freezer bags or Ziplocs until you need them.

Applesauce Cranberry Ices

So refreshing at the end of a seuda…

Ingredients

1 ½ – 2 cups applesauce
2 cans cranberry sauce (the one without the whole berries)
1 cup Sprite soda
1 cup orange juice
Optional (I did not use it): 1-2 Tablespoons fruit flavored liqueur

Method

Mix this up by hand in a bowl, or beat it with a hand beater for a minute or two to make it smooth. Pour it into a flat large plastic square container and freeze overnight. (Right, this took you about 4.5 minutes so far? Now comes the next 5 minutes or so!) The next day, remove it from the freezer. Cut into it; if you can, then cut it into four or five pieces and put it into your mixer bowl. Beat it slowly with the flat metal hook (ie, NOT the egg beaters!) until it resembles sherbet consistency. Refreeze. Remove from the freezer about 5 minutes before serving. Scoop into dessert bowls and serve.

Pomegranate Glazed Apple Strudel Squares

You don’t need the mixer for this recipe, it is easily hand done.and this smells amazing while baking!

Ingredients

4 cups flour
1 ½ cups trans fat free or reduced margarine
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
7 medium sized any kind apples
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Pomegranate Glaze
1 ½ cups powdered (icing or confectioners) sugar (don’t use regular white sugar it will not work!)
2 ½ Tablespoon oil
1/8 teaspoon lemon juice
4-5 Tablespoons hot pomegranate juice or syrup (you can use a pomegranate drink such as “Spring” brand to save some money)

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C.

In a large bowl, combine the flour and trans fat free margarine. Cut it together until it is crumbly. Add the sugar and mix a bit again. Check the eggs and beat them slightly with a fork in the glass they’re in. Add to the flour mix and combine all until you have a chunky, dry looking crumble mixture. Take off almost ¾ of this mixture and pat it down firmly into a large pan, about 11×14 in or a 16×10 inches. (It’s about one and a half times the size of an ordinary 9×13 pan.)

For the apples, whichever kind you choose will give this recipe a different flavor each time you do it. Myself, I just use up whatever old apples I have sitting in the fridge, so mine was made with a combo of all three colors of apples. It came out delicious.

Peel the apples and slice them/ pare them by hand into a large bowl. Sprinkle the lemon juice over them. Combine the ½ cup sugar and the cinnamon together over the apples and toss the whole mixture so it is coated evenly. Place this apple mixture all over the top of the crumbs in your pan. After it’s even, crumble over it the rest of the crumbs mixture. You may want to crumble the remaining crumbs a bit more by hand before sprinkling all over so you will be left with less lumpy pieces after it bakes on top of it.

Bake for 45 minutes until it is slightly golden all over and a drop darker by the edges. Remove from the oven and let it cool. After it’s cooled, cut it into squares and set aside.

Pomegranate Glaze

Place the pomegranate juice / syrup into a glass and heat it in the microwave for 40 seconds on high. Alternately, place the glass it’s in into a bowl of hot water to warm it up. It does need to be hot in order to turn into a good glaze. Put the powdered sugar in a plastic bowl, add in the oil and lemon juice. Add in the first 3 T. of hot pomegranate liquid. Start to mix it with a spoon. It should begin to thicken almost immediately. If it’s too thick, add more hot liquid by small, very small, increments until it is thick enough to drip but is not runny. If it’s too thin, add small amounts more of powdered sugar and keep mixing by hand until it is a nice thick, but not too firm consistency. Take your spoon and drizzle it all over in thin lines on top of your by-now-cooled-down apple strudel squares. There’s no food coloring in this picture, this is really how it comes out when using pomegranate liquid. Enjoy! This can be frozen in the pan until the day of use. Just remove it from the freezer about 3 hours before you need it, then present your squares on a nice platter or in cupcake holders, and serve.

Incredible Honey Cookies

Here’s a GREAT make-ahead Rosh Hashanah recipe that I made last year and taped up on my notice board then, specifically so that I wouldn’t forget to share it with all of you this year…

A very dear and special lady, Rebbetzin Sarah Meisels, gave me this recipe. She told me they are so good that even if your family doesn’t like honey cookies, these will not go uneaten, and boy, was she ever right. I made a huge batch of them last year and then had to hide them in the freezer so they wouldn’t be completely finished before I needed them. And this is from a baker (me!) who always shied away from honey cookies. I know this is a very big recipe — but, since it’s Erev Yom Tov now and many of our readers have large families to prepare for, I decided to leave the Rebbetzin’s amounts as they are. This makes over 100 cookies, but only if you don’t allow your fan club to snatch them off the trays as they are coming out of the oven…

Ingredients

1½ cups margarine (300 grams)
2 cups sugar (450 grams)
6 eggs
1 cup honey
7 cups flour (1 full kilo of flour)
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
1¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon juice
¼teaspoon ground cloves (optional)

Method

Cream the margarine and the sugar. Add in the eggs. Mix again. Add in everything else. Mix until you have a nice soft dough and then turn off the mixer. It will be somewhat sticky — this is normal. Cover and place the cookie dough in the fridge to firm up for about 1–2 hours. If you forget to take it out until the next day, that’s okay too.

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C.

Line the baking trays with parchment paper. Form small balls of cookie dough, roll each ball in a bit of flour and place them on parchment paper lined cookie trays. Press down each cookie very slightly with the tips of your fingers. Don’t press too hard! Bake the cookies until they are light golden brown, about 10–12 minutes. DO NOT bake them more than 15 minutes or they will be rock hard! When they are slightly crinkled and golden brown, they are done. Remove from the oven immediately. Let them sit on the tray for a few more minutes before you remove them to a platter to cool completely. I suggest making these on a morning when kids and hubbies are not home so that you will have something to put into the freezer after you are done!

Margarine or Oil? Which will it be?

It’s been years since I’ve switched over nearly all my baking from margarine based recipes to those that use oil instead. Margarine is an unhealthy food, (and some can argue that it may not even be called food!), and because of the increased health awareness today, bakers everywhere want to know what to do when recipes call for crumbs or bases that require margarine.

I have this great apple/fruit crunch that we enjoy eating every Shabbos day and it calls for lots of crunch on top. The main ingredient is margarine and I want to create that “crunchy” crunch but without all the trans fat of margarine. How can I do this?

Note: yes there are margarines sold that are ‘trans-fat free’; these ideas are for those who can’t get this or who prefer to use oil instead.

The short answer to converting recipes from margarine to oil is that in general, one uses the same amounts of oil as they would margarine. For instance, when I do a crumb mixture, I begin with the same ratio but if the crumbs look too ‘dry’ I will add a bit more oil until I like the texture. Other times, I will decrease. For example, a relative of mine has this really amazing recipe for ruggelach dough and has been making them for every family simcha for over 35 years. However, it has 2 entire cups of margarine for only 7 cups of flour! No wonder they are so light and crispy! When I learned that, I stopped letting my relative give us bags and bags of those heavenly baked items for my kids. But when I went to duplicate the recipe myself with oil, 2 cups just made it swim around and I had to play with the recipe until I had a dough that I liked. True, it is not quite as crispy and flaky as the margarine dough, but it is very good and there is no trans fat involved at all.

Back to the crumbs question, you can add lots of good-for-you grains and nuts to your crumbs so that besides being margarine free, it can also be white-flour and white sugar-free. You can also cut down on the amount of sugar used until you reach the taste you like, thereby decreasing the sugar content as well. Since you are sprinkling the crumbs on top of sweet fruit, you don’t actually need all the sugar most recipes claim you do in order to have a good tasting crumble on top of your apples (or peaches, cranberry, pears, etc.)

Here’s a basic ratio that we enjoy using on our fruit crumbles. It also freezes well and if you have any leftover, you can always put it back in the fridge or freezer to use for the next time.

Ratio for one 8×11 inch pan (or you can split it between 2-3 loaf pans of any size you like):
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 & 1/2 cups oatmeal
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 – 1 & 1/2 cup ground nuts such as almonds or walnuts
Optional: 1/4 cup sunflower seeds (unsalted), or whole sesame seeds
1/2 cup – 3/4 cup demerara sugar (light brown)
3/4 cup oil of choice (not soy oil)

Directions:

Put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix them together with a fork. Add in 1/2 cup of the oil and continue to toss the mix together with your fork. If it is still too dry, add in more of the oil. It should resemble a nice, darkened crumb mixture that is neither too wet nor too dry. If it does become too heavy, add more oats or flour or nuts to it and remix. This ‘recipe’ does not need a mixer.
Just sprinkle this generously over the sliced fruit in your pan, bake it at 350°F / 180-190°C until the top is lightly browned and crispy and it’s ready. You can certainly freeze this. To serve, just defrost and serve. We enjoy it best cold, served directly to the table alongside the cholent or chicken meal.

Another fun idea that you can try with this recipe is to turn into a sort of granola. Try packing it alone into a baking pan and baking it – see if it will let you cut it into small bars afterwards. You may need to add more oil for this to work, though. Or you can spread it out on a lined cookie sheet and bake it until it’s toasted, and then try adding it to your plain bio yogurts or ice cream or with some milk and bananas…

The ideas are endless and are all up to your creativity!

Enjoy taking the margarine out of your diet.

Pomegranate Flavored Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons oil
2-4 tablespoons juice

You don’t need to buy expensive real pomegranate juice. I just used one of those Spring boxes of pomegranate ‘juice’ drink. It works fine.

Mix these ingredients together with a spoon, starting with only 2 tablespoons of the juice, until they are smooth. If it is too dry, add in bits more juice. If it is too thin and therefore sinks into the cake too quickly, add in more powdered sugar to thicken it. Once it’s a nice consistency, drizzle it with the help of a spoon all over your cooled cake, and enjoy!

Apple Beet Cake
Great idea just in time for Rosh Hashana!

Here’s a sweet, new idea on how to creatively incorporate some of our ‘regular’ Rosh Hashana foods in newer ways, beets, apples and a healthy sweet cake!

This freezes great and with all the beets, apples and whole wheat it is a healthier alternative to regular cake, especially for Kiddush in the morning.
Yields: 30 muffins or 60 mini muffins or 2 – 9 or 10 inch bund cakes

Ingredients

4 eggs
1 & 1/2 cups light brown sugar
3/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup orange juice
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
4 small green apples, peeled and shredded
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons additional sugar, or take some sugar off of the amount above
1 teaspoon lemon juice *
2 cups shredded cooked beets
*We don’t usually use tart lemon juice at this time of year; those who want to can leave it out. It is only incorporated into this recipe to keep the apples from turning colors and its taste is not discernible in the final product.

Method

Before beginning, make sure you have already cooked beets on hand, either by boiling them earlier that day and cooling them in the fridge or by baking them, covered at 375°F / 190°C for 45 minutes. They will shred much neater and easier when the cooked beets are cold. Shred them, then measure out 2 cups and keep them ready. If you have extra, either turn them into beet salad or eat them for dinner!
Put all 4 eggs into the mixer, you don’t need to separate them first. Using your wire wisk, beat the eggs for 3 minutes to aerate them somewhat. Then add in the oil, orange juice, flour, baking soda and baking powder in the exact order listed, while the mixer is beating on a low speed. When the batter is smooth, turn off the mixer.

Toss the shredded apples with the cinnamon and the extra bit of sugar and lemon juice. Add them into the batter, together with the shredded beets. Using a spatula, gently turn and mix it into the batter until it is all incorporated. The batter should turn a deep pinkish color.

Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180° C.

Line your muffin trays with muffin liners. If you are doing the bund cake shapes, spray two 9-10 inch bund pans with baking oil spray. Pour batter into the bund pans only until halfway filled, not higher. If you are doing mini muffins, put 2 tablespoons of batter into each cup. For regular muffins, put batter into the cups until it is a little bit more than half way filled with batter.

Slide the cake or muffins into your oven and bake until done.

Bundt cakes should take between 25-30 minutes. Test it to ensure it is done and remove immediately so it will not overbake.

Mini muffins take only about 8-10 minutes to be fully baked.

Regular sized muffins should take between 14-18 minutes.

If you would like a sort of pomegranate or cranberry juice glaze on the top of your bund cake, here’s a nice glaze to try out. However, ONLY add on the glaze after your cake has cooled down completely, or else it will sink and disappear into the cake!

Pomegranate flavored glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons oil
2-4 tablespoons juice

You don’t need to buy expensive real pomegranate juice. I just used one of those Spring boxes of pomegranate ‘juice’ drink. It works fine.

Mix these ingredients together with a spoon, starting with only 2 tablespoons of the juice, until they are smooth. If it is too dry, add in bits more juice. If it is too thin and therefore sinks into the cake too quickly, add in more powdered sugar to thicken it. Once it’s a nice consistency, drizzle it with the help of a spoon all over your cooled cake, and enjoy!