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Tag Archives: sukkos

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

Blended Fruit Soup

A delightful summertime treat that I specifically save it for seudas shelishis (the third meal of Shabbos afternoon)

serves 8 to 10

My neighbor Esther shared this with me. It is a variation on an otherwise typical fruit soup, and it is such a delightful summertime treat that I specifically save it for seudas shelishis/ the third meal of Shabbos afternoon. It also is such a refreshing treat in the Succah. Here in Israel, Succos is still very warm in the daytime, unlike most of the East Coast of the US of A! My kids love it; they don’t see or taste any pieces and the color is very attractive. For those who DO like texture in a fruit soup, you can just puree it half way.

Ingredients

each of assorted overripe fruits, such as seedless grapes, plums, peaches,
nectarines, and apricots, or even a glass jar of red cherries
1/4 – 1/2 cup sugar (optional)
1 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons agave syrup (a natural chemical-free sweetener available in health-food stores)
** You can use 2-4 tablespoons of apple juice concentrate instead if you don’t have access to the agave syrup

Method

Wash all fruit. Slice and dice (if you are not pureeing all the way, be sure to cut each grape in half to prevent small children from choking G-d forbid) and place all fruit in a large pot. Fill the pot with water halfway up to the height of the fruit.

When the water boils, turn down the heat and simmer until fruit is completely cooked, about 40 minutes. Cool and add orange juice and agave syrup. Taste the liquid. If it is too tart for your taste, add sugar (but I never need to). (Or more agave if you want to keep the sugar out completely.)

Puree the fruit soup with a stick blender and chill thoroughly in a glass or plastic container, covered. Serve in small dessert bowls or pretty glasses and watch your family enjoy it to the last drop!

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.