Buttermilk Cluster

I spent Shavuot in school with the girls and so wanted to bake some bread to enjoy for it. Because we traditionally eat dairy on Shavuot, I took the opportunity to make the bread dairy. (Dairy bread, by Jewish law is forbidden to make, lest one accidentally eat it at a meat meal. The only way it is permissible is if the shape is distinct enough to serve as a reminder that it is different than the norm.) For ages, I've seen the picture of the Buttermilk Cluster on the Fresh Loaf website and so I wanted to make something along those lines. I opened up Secrets of a Jewish Baker and settled on the Buttermilk Bread. I made half a recipe in my mixer and baked it as rolls in a cake pan. I used oil instead of margarine or shortening. This dough would make a great sandwich loaf because it is nice and soft. I was anticipating a sweeter roll with a stronger taste of buttermilk although I'm not sure why because there is barely any sweetener in it, this making it perfect for savory applications. Next time, I would definitely up the salt as I found myself sprinkling the rolls with salt before I took each bite. Because I love sesame seeds, I took the liberty of glazing the rolls with egg white and sprinkling half of them with sesame seeds. These rolls are being Yeastspotted!

Lemon Chiffon Pie in Gingersnap Crust

I've been baking a lot lately, but things have been crazy and I am just now finding the time to post. The girls' banquet or sob fest was last night and most of them are leaving in the next couple of days so my time is freeing up for a bit before I move. Crazy! Two weekends ago, when I went to A for Shabbat, I brought over this Lemon Chiffon Pie. Something mousse-like was requested and I immediately went for lemon. I figured a chiffon pie would be perfect and indeed, made with a homemade gingersnap crust, it was. In my humble opinion, gingersnap and lemon are perfectly complementary and everyone else agreed. Light and refreshing, it's the perfect summertime dessert. However, there are a couple of technical things I'd do differently. The recipe for the chiffon pie comes from the book Pie by Ken Haedrich. He calls for one envelope of gelatin and not knowing what the Israeli equivalent was, I used 2 teaspoons. I think it was too much as the end product was a but too... jiggly for my liking. I loved the texture of it when it was still mousse-like, not all the way set. I think the next time I make this, and there will be a next time (even if I only make the filling as a dessert) I'd cut the gelatin back to the vicinity of a teaspoon, a teaspoon and a quarter. Otherwise, I have no complaints. All my eaters were happy. My roommate ate the leftovers of this pie all the way to the last crumb.

Chocolate Refrigerator Cake

I had a beautiful Shabbat this past weekend, spent with friends in one of my favorite places, the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem. For both of my meals, I was put on dessert duty. I'm always happy to make desserts but lately I've been realizing that it's easier to make difficult life decisions than decide what to make for dessert. It's actually pretty sad :) I spent part of my in-day on Tuesday researching desserts (yes, baking constitutes research for me!) that would be great for a hot day and as I was flipping through all my books I was hit with inspiration. Chocolate Refrigerator Cake! Or Cookies and Cream Cake. Whichever you think will elicit a better reaction from your eaters.This cake comes from the fifties but is no less of a success now than it was then. Made with chocolate wafer cookies layered with whipped cream and then stacked in rows in a pan, the cake is chilled overnight where the cookies soften into a wonderful cake-like consistency. You can use store-bought chocolate wafers or make your own, as I chose to do here. I used the recipe from the Cookie Companion but you can also use the cocoa wafer recipe found here. Once the cookies are made, this is a breeze to put together. The response to this dessert was overwhelmingly positive. At both meals where I served this, people LOVED it! With cookies and cream involved, it's not too difficult to understand why, but still my roommate placed this in her favorites of all time category and she's been eating my baking for two years now! Needless to say, if you're looking for a fun dessert to make this summer, this should be it.

Strawberry Linzer Bars

The hunt for nut based cookies keeps going. This here is a bar cookie that plays off the classic Linzertorte. I used one bag of ground hazelnuts/filberts to make a dough that is layered with strawberry jelly and topped with some reserved crumbled dough. I know raspberry is the more traditional option, but they were out in the supermarket. The girls found these bars interesting and happily ate them, but I was in love with the scent of the hazelnuts, toasting as they baked. (Whenever I buy raw hazelnuts for snacking, I ALWAYS toast them before eating. There is just nothing like it.) Everything comes together super fast with a handy-dandy mixer. Be aware that the crust won't deeply brown and also grease your pan WELL so you have no breakage where the jelly sticks to the pan. Only three bags of nuts to go!

Apple Rhubarb Pandowdy

The picture you see here may look like a pie, but really, it's something a bit simpler to put together with a much cooler name. It's a pandowdy. A pandowdy essentially is a bottomcrust-less pie, so instead of going through the work of making and rolling out two pie crusts, you only have the inconvenience (if you can call making pies incovenient! Shame on you!) of making one. Naturally, I still had some rhubarb leftover and some apples that were neglected from dinner so I threw this together one night. The recipe comes from Rustic Fruit Desserts and it really couldn't be easier, especially if you have ready made pie crusts (only the homemade kind!) in the freezer. A scoop of vanilla ice cream is really welcome here, so if you have that, this will make a wonderful Shabbat dessert. Or whenever you just feel like having a nice plate of comforting pandowdy. Or two. With ice cream. I won't tell.