Planning for Pesach yet? No???  Why the heck not? Oh, yeah... because it's January.  Then again, when better to test out recipes so your family doesn't have to live with those thrown-together first-time "experiments" when yom tov rolls around? And if you think of it as the most incredible gluten-free pie crust you've ever seen, EVER, then it becomes a little easier (so to speak) to swallow. Plus, hey, who doesn't love a new cookbook?  Especially when, like Maryland mom Paula Shoyer's brand-new The New Passover Menu , it's a totally user-friendly experience, complete with prep times, cook times, hints for advance prep and freezing... plus, get this:  equipment lists.  Yes!  A cookbook writer who GETS what it's like to work in a bare-bones Pesach kitchen, not sure if you have a pareve sieve or not.  (Though she recommends that everybody run out to buy a waffle iron for Pesach, which may not be the most practical suggestion eve...

Know what the most popular post on this site is, right at this very moment?  By far? It’s a post called “ Mmm… kichelicious .” I adore kichel, the dry unsweetened European cookie that has been a staple of Jewish life since… well, probably since someone’s Bubby needed to make cookies and discovered that she was out of sugar.  Apparently, thousands of people out there on the Internet love kichel and want to know how to make it well at home. But celebrity kosher baker Paula Shoyer does not.  Which is too bad, because in every other way, she’s absolutely perfect.  I enjoyed a baking demo she did yesterday at the home of the U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro.  She did a really great job of preparing a couple of basic recipes that I hope to share with you very soon. But the real reason for her crusade to bring simple, delicious pareve baking recipes to home cooks is because, as she said yesterday, “in the U.S., pareve desserts… are absolutely horr...

When you love baking as much as I do, you become an evangelist. After we moved to Israel, and our whole lives were topsy-turvy, the only time I felt like things were at all “normal” were when I was making bread.  Those breads were rudimentary at first – hey, we didn’t even have an oven.  But they kept me grounded.  I was so ecstatic when all our possessions arrived, including my gorgeous cast iron loaf pans, plastic dough bucket , and other beloved bakeware, accumulated over the years.  It was time to get my hands floury and really start baking again. I love how centered and grounded baking makes me feel, but can’t help wondering why other people seem to think it’s hard, or complicated, or just not something they have space for in their lives.  We all have time and space to make bread.  Sure, it takes a while, but very little of that is active prep time.  A bread that takes 36 hours from start to finish may have less than ten minutes of actual st...

Decided to try another kichel recipe, this time Marcy Goldman’s, from A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking .  Being the cheapo that I am, I didn’t rush out and actually buy the book (like I’d love for you to do by clicking the links!), I just looked up the recipe I wanted online. I found two almost-identical copies of the recipe here and here . Why two recipes? When using web recipes, I ALWAYS do due diligence and cross-check at least two versions for discrepancies.  It’s just too easy for a well-meaning blogger to make a mistake typing in a recipe, and it’s also easy for somebody to change around a couple of ingredients when posting their version of so-and-so’s winning recipe (and not say it’s been modified). So I did that – I double-checked every single ingredient, then went ahead and made the cookies, and after great effort to roll and cut them (sticky!), popped them in the oven for 25-30 minutes as directed in this version . Okay… I’ll admit it, I didn’t notice...

Not pita exactly, since this is basically the same way I make any flatbread.  Roll it, pat it, and toast it in my wonderful cast-iron skillet.   Dry – no grease or anything on the pan beyond the olive oil we apply to store the pan. I used the basic “50% spelt” recipe from Artisan Pizza & Flatbreads in Five Minutes a Day .  Not sure I love the cookbook, since there seem to be many many sauces and dips and not so many actual bread formulas, but I have it out from the library for a while longer, so I will keep exploring. The reason I wanted spelt – other than the fact that my mother and sister picked me up a big bag of nice, fresh spelt a couple of weeks ago – is that I was preparing these “pita” for an “ Egyptian feast ” to tie in with our ancient history studies.  Spelt may not be Emmer and Einkorn , but it’s a bit more authentic, and it adds whole grain without weighing down the taste and texture of the bread.  As far as I’m concerned, the words ...

Is it October and the fruit flies are still #$^! everywhere??? Luckily, I have a tent! Here, it’s sheltering two sourdough breads I made yesterday – one for our family, one for a friend who had a baby.  (I sent the bread with a lasagna… one cannot live on bread alone!) I used Peter Reinhart’s basic Pain au Levain from p. 61 of Artisan Breads Every Day .  Indeed, it turned out so well, crusty outside, tender and moist with HUGE openings inside, that we could DEFINITELY eat bread like this every day. I had almost forgotten.  I don’t own this book, despite drooling over it countless times from the library, so I used my becoming-standard trick of perusing the book using Amazon ’s “Look Inside” feature.  I took a quick screenshot of the recipe so I wouldn’t have to print it out. And, of course, I used my amazing Sourdough Spreadsheet again.  It was helpful, because the recipe called for 458g of 60% starter, and I only had 352g, so it told me ex...

Nothing goes together at Sukkos time like fresh-picked PUMPKIN and challah dough! We didn’t actually pick the pumpkins ourselves, but did pick them UP (and pick them OUT) at the place we went for apple picking .  So it’s sort of the same thing… I have vowed never to peel another raw squash again, because it’s so blissfully EASY to just cut them in half, pop them in an oiled pan face-down, and roast them at 300° until it’s soft enough to poke.  You can actually roast them at almost any temperature.  400° works just as well but quicker… but just look what this Australian baking blog says about LOWER temperatures: We roast the pumpkin in our wood-fired oven at a low heat (50C to 100C) for 24 - 36 hours. At the low temperatures the pumpkin malts, which firms and helps keep the pumpkin from falling apart in the dough. Yummy!  (one of the kids said they thought the pumpkin would MUMMIFY in the heat, which it sort of sounds like it does… “malting” being another...

Yum!  These are the “double-cheddar” scones from Marcy Goldman’s Best of BetterBaking.com – I had some butter and some cheddar and could not resist these.  (not quite enough cheddar, so I skimped a bit, but they are still cheesy and delish!) Super-easy… the only hard part was waiting for them to cool before eating!

Even if you’re not a teen or twenty-something (anymore – or yet!), here’s another chance to WIN a copy of Susie Fishbein’s Kosher by Design:  Teens and 20-Somethings . I’ll be posting a review and announcing my contest winner on my regular blog on November 10th (3 Kislev).  You can check out other blogger reviews, recipes, etc., in the meantime here . In honour of this slick new cookbook (I love the “fun” side of Artscroll!), I am announcing my very own… COOKING DISASTER CONTEST. Leave a comment after THE CONTEST POST (NOT here!) to tell me (in as much hilarious detail as you want) about your most disastrous kitchen disaster – EVER.  Read more rules here … bread- and cake-related disasters are most welcome!

This is the Semolina (Durum) Bread from Bread:  A Baker’s Book , which I wanted to try as an alternative to the semolina bread I have been attemping (and failing) so far. (I forgot to put sesame seeds on top and just floured before slashing.  And once again, the slashes were not deep enough!) It’s made with a “flying” sponge – which apparently means that all the yeast is in it and makes for a faster bulk fermentation.  It is faster than the other semolina breads I’ve tried, but I guess faster isn’t always better. I really think I did everything right with this one!  Okay, ALMOST everything.  I admit:  I was scared of another raw-in-the-middle disaster, so I baked this a bit longer than I was supposed to.  I was planning to give it 40 minutes at 460°.  After 30 minutes, it was alarmingly dark, so I tented it and turned the temp down to 450°. I don’t think overbaking was solely responsible for the ultimate dryness of this bread, though I ...

This recipe jumped out at me the other day while flipping exhaustedly through my mother’s well-thumbed-by-me copy of A Blessing of Bread :  Pan de Calabazas – Sephardic Pumpkin Bread.   The book describes it as a sephardic Rosh Hashanah bread, but I figure with pumpkins just coming into their own right now, it’s perfect for Sukkos.  Plus, Ted loves anything with pumpkin! I am reminded of the Ashkenazi custom to dissolve a few threads of saffron to give your challah a lustrous yellowy-orange colour (perhaps in times and places when egg yolks were not as plentiful?).  In this case, though, the pumpkin (she says you can also use a sweet potato) also adds moisture, hopefully making for a long-keeping bread. Here are the steps to creating this gorgeous orange challah. Autolyse/slurry:   Fold laundry, come back 1/2 an hour later.   Add in all the other liquids… (nice and sweet, but light on the egg; my favourite!)   Then dump in the ...