When I first found out that Judaism had a holiday specifically for celebrating dairy foods, my first thought wasn't cheesecake.  My first thought was... gulab jamun. What the heck are gulab jamun??? If you love Indian food as much as I do, you probably already know. I grew up eating a lot of Indian food, and once I started keeping kosher, I missed it most of all.  More than Chinese, Thai, or KFC put together. (Maybe not more than real dim sum!) When I was a toddler, my father flew to India with an Indian friend and had the time of his life.  He came back with a pair of lovely white linen "day pyjamas" that he'd save for special occasions, a love of delicate nose piercings and an insatiable appetite for Indian food. (For some weird reason, my father hated ear piercings for girls but told me as I grew up that it would be just fine if I got my nose pierced.  And indeed, he didn't flinch when I eventually got one.) Ah, but Indian food.  For...

Quit kvetching.  At least, that’s what everybody says when I blog about the problems I’ve had baking here in Israel.  Which, just to recap, range from teeny tiny oven in small, hellishly-hot kitchen, to weird fake ingredients (tzimkao, vanillin sugar), to things that are missing altogether or wildly expensive (maple anything, corn syrup). Fair enough; you’re more likely to be successful in your aliyah if you adapt quickly and learn to savour the wonderful foods that can be found here, rather than moping about what you miss from “back home.”  In truth, I don’t even say the words “back home” because this IS home. But one thing I’ve found myself missing – heaven help me! - is the taste of s’mores.  Particularly the delectable S’mores Bars in this pareve recipe .  Cleverly, these bars recreate the gooey goodness of s’mores in a versatile dessert-bar form.  After searching for a perfect “s’mores dessert” for a whle, I finally discovered this recipe and h...

And no, they’re not both cheesecakes… although one is; a special all-Israeli cheesecake for which you can find the recipe a bit further down.  And okay, both are dairy-based; sorry to anyone who can’t have dairy at this very milky time of year… (In fact, since I started to write this, my husband decided to make a classic North American lemony cheesecake, deapite my predictions of doom that it wouldn’t work with Israeli cheese… so we may end up with three cakes.) With all of my dooming and glooming about baking in Israel, I was happy to receive a recipe from my ulpan teacher on Sunday night which she guaranteed would work with Israeli ingredients – given that she’s never baked it anywhere else.  I figure as an old dog making aliyah, it’s time for a new trick… with cheesecake. Except, except, except… her cheesecake doesn’t have a crust.  Heresy!  I couldn’t bake a crustless cheesecake.  Honestly, I was about to pour it into the pan (#26, according to her ...