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Passover Baking


Pam R

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I'm supposed to bring something to our family dinner for Passover, but I'm stumped. Mom is making a bunch of the mixes (no, my family's not exactly gourmets, but it's one of those comfort things, I guess).

One idea was homemade chocolate pudding, something I know is a favorite of my father's, but the recipes I know of use cornstarch, which isn't KfP. Any ideas for anything in the custard/pudding style?

I did find one for Sweet Matzo and Cottage Cheese Pudding, which is a quasi-noodle kugel, something I always think of as a dessert, not a side dish. It looks interesting, but I'm not sure how it'll come out.

If people are not into milk/meat exclusions, I have done bread pudding substituting matzah, with some sort of creme anglaise, with good success. You can add any type of booze, dried/fresh fruit, chocolate chips, whatever you want.

Also, I make an individual serving chocolate cake with molten center that has only 1 tsp of flour for a 4 serving recipe. I am sure you can substitute cake flour. I will root around for the recipe. However, again it has lots of butter and may be a problem for observant folks after they have a large meat/fowl centric meal.

Also how about french macarones from egg whites, sugar and almonds?

-- Mache

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  • 1 year later...

Anybody doing anything different this year? After 25+ years of baking chiffon cakes at work, we switched it up and are baking tarts (chocolate, frangipane(almond & raspberry) and pecan. Also doing Amaretti and if I have time a couple of different (from out regular) varieties of mandelbroit. And meringues, of course.

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I found this delicious recipe for Mock Chestnut Torte by Marcy Goldman in her "A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking". You can find the recipe on epicurious.com It's made with sweet potatoes. :rolleyes:

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Here's a very simple one from David Lebovitz's website but is actually from Ottolenghi, a London restaurant [named for its chef/owner]

These are florentines made with sliced almonds. Simple to make and you don't even need to beat the egg whites! The Ottolenghi version doesn't have the chocolate coating.

chocolate-dipped florentines

jayne

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  • 1 year later...

This is an adaptation of a Gina DePalma recipe. She's the pastry chef at Babbo (in NYC)

I gave this one a test run and it's really very good and really easy to make if you've got ground almonds. No need to separate or beat egg whites. Tastes like a regular layer cake with flavor from the almonds but it is definitely not a Passover sponge cake or classic nut cake. I can't comment on the use of a glaze or frosting since I only baked the layer cake (and it came out looking like the layer cake in the photo.)

Here's a link to the original recipe and accompanying article. My substitutions/changes are listed below the link.

Gina DePalma's Almond Olive Oil Cake

Substitutions/changes:

1) Instead of the 1 cup flour, use 3/4 cups fluffed-up cake meal PLUS 1/4 cup potato starch. (For the cake meal, before you measure it, try to fluff it a bit with a fork so it's not packed down in the canister.

2) Don't worry about the almond extract if you don't have any on hand. I'm sure that it's good with it but it's also fine without.

3) Make sure that you use the following 3 ingredients on the list and that you don't play around with leaving them out: lemon/orange zest, vanilla, and olive oil. I don't think you want to use safflower oil. The olive oil is also contributing to the cake's flavor and texture. (Also I'm assuming that you have a grater for the lemon/orange but if you don't, you might want to buy a microplane zester.)

4) Would probably work just as well in an 8-inch square pan if that's all you have. I did my testing in a 9-inch round. Use margarine and cake meal for the "grease and flour" step.

Jayne

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  • 11 months later...

I've decided to bake for Passover this year, as I'm sick of waiting on a long line, paying a LOT of money for a really crappy, dry aweful cake to bring to seder....

I have been planning a layer cake with the cake parts being lemon scented and the filling as a Herve This inspired dairy-free mousse - it's basically an emulsion of chocolate and some liquid - in my case I'm using a nice coffee.

I did some experiments this weekend with the filling, using two different brews, and then varying the ratio of chocolate:coffee to get the texture I was looking for. I've read a lot about these types of mousses but have never made them myself, but I'm amazed at how well the technique works. Light, fluffy, and really intensely flavored. I am thinking of using the technique to make the frosting as well, just changing the liquid ratio to make it a bit stiffer, and maybe I'll sweeten it a touch more, since I"m using 70% chocolate that's not very sweet.

I haven't baked a cake in a long time - and I don't think I've ever done a passover cake - does anyone have any ideas to make a sponge cake that is dairy free, (eggs are ok) and kosher for passover that's not dry and crumbly? I was thinking maybe some type of almond/olive oil cake, but I'm definitely open to suggestions.

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You'll want to use matzah cake meal/potato starch, not regular matzah meal. It is much finer and closer to flour.

You can substitute 3/4th cup of matzah cake meal for 1 cup of regular flour (or combo of mc flour and potato starch). MC flour is more dense than flour, so you may need to adjust accordingly.

Using this product will greatly improve the texture of your cakes.

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I hope I'm not breaking any rules here, but our very own Pam R has a passover dessert book that you should get. Her recipes posted in RecipeGullet for Pesach are excellent, and you're sure to find something to work with that wonderful-sounding mousse filling!

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Thanks for the advice! I have several recipes that I'm looking at for the cake portion (some from recipeGullet, and some from previous passover baking threads) - but it's always good to get more suggestions and ideas.

Also, I was just wondering what other people are doing this year... I know I'm a couple weeks early, but it's never early to start planning, right?

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, just an update of what's been going on, and a question...

So, I changed my cake from being citrus scented, to hazelnut. I did a lot of searching online, and saw a bunch of recipes that looked ok, then made some tweaks and came up with this:

10 eggs, separated

1/2# toasted hazelnuts, cooled then ground

1C sugar

2T matzoh cake flour

pinch salt

Whip the yolks with the sugar

Whip in MC flour

Fold in ground nuts

Whip whites to stiff, fold into yolk mixture

Bake 350F, 50min or so

Being that I have such little experience with baking, I went to the baking supply store and bought a new "non stick" square pan whose shape would work well for my application. While washing it, it definitely seemed non stick as the water would just bead up on it.

I didn't grease or paper the pan, hoping the non-stickiness would be enough, but, the cake practically welded itself to the bottom and sides of the pan!

Should I grease or paper the pan, or both? In what order? Since I can't use butter, should I use shortening, margarine or oil?

Also, while the cake is nice and moist, it's a bit heavy - do you think I could lighten up on a yolk or two, and add an extra corresponding quantity of white to lighten it a bit?

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I wanted to make an apple crisp. I thought I'd replace the flour with matza cake flour. I didnt have any and I was just experimented so I just whizzed up existing matza meal in the magic bullet. I used oats and some almonds( some of them I partially ground). It came out sooooo good. Then I found out Oats are Chamesh. Boo. I was looking forward to it. My friend told me about a crisp recipe using matza farfel. I'm going to do a search online and see what I can come up with.

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Well, it's not a new idea, but, after thinking about it for two years and looking for some recipes and ideas, this year I'm making a Boca di Dama using Joyce Goldstein's recipe as a starting point.

I'm not much of a baker, so this is a big deal for me, and since it's going to be the first seder I've been to in decades, it's important that I get it right.

 ... Shel


 

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My wife does the baking for our large Seder each year along with several other attendees. One of the hits are her marshmallow meringues. Some with chocolate chips and nuts and some plain. These are flat out easy, light for a quick sweet treat and there is little guilt as they don't have many calories.

Me I just made 5 lbs of beet horseradish, but that's another topic

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I didn't grease or paper the pan, hoping the non-stickiness would be enough, but, the cake practically welded itself to the bottom and sides of the pan!

Should I grease or paper the pan, or both? In what order? Since I can't use butter, should I use shortening, margarine or oil?

Also, while the cake is nice and moist, it's a bit heavy - do you think I could lighten up on a yolk or two, and add an extra corresponding quantity of white to lighten it a bit?

Try lining the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and use some oil and matzah cake meal for the sides of the pan.

To lighten it up, I would add more whipped egg whites. Save the extra yolks for ice cream.

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Helped my hostess bake a Passover wine cake tonight. Flavored with ground walnuts, cinnamon and ginger and a sweet red wine, it looked and smelled delicious when it was done. I'll let you all know how it really was after I taste it on Friday night.

Katie M. Loeb
Booze Muse, Spiritual Advisor

Author: Shake, Stir, Pour:Fresh Homegrown Cocktails

Cheers!
Bartendrix,Intoxicologist, Beverage Consultant, Philadelphia, PA
Captain Liberty of the Good Varietals, Aphrodite of Alcohol

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Apologies if this has been answered somewhere in the past. I want to make Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cocoa Souffle Roll, substituting almond oil for the butter. There are only 2 tbsp butter in the recipe, melted into the dissolved cocoa. This substitution shouldn't be a problem, should it?

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