Evette’s Star Cookies (Massafan)

October 2, 2012

Author: Myrite

Originally posted on Roots and Recipes.

Evette comes from Iraq and grew up eating these cookies, that are traditionally eaten to break the fast of Yom Kippur. She has passed on this tradition to her own grand daughters and game them a recipe book for their Bat Mitzvah’s with all her recipes. She is part of the Dishing Up The Past video project.

Ingredients:

1 cup(s) shelled almonds

1/3 cup(s) sugar

1 egg white

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

Rosewater

Preparation:

Materials

Food Processor

Pot

Large Bowl

Small Dish

Two baking trays

Parchment/wax paper

*To prepare almonds:

1. Boil water in a pot

2. Add whole, unshelled almonds and let them cook for two minutes.

3. Take out a little at a time, drain, and remove peel using thumb and

forefinger. This is called blanching the almonds.

4. Let the almonds dry on a tray lined with parchment paper for one or two days.

5. Grind the almonds in batches in a food processor until quite fine (it is best to do this in two stages or else the almonds will release too many oils and become soggy)

Method

1. Mix ingredients together into a dough

2. Pour some rosewater into a small dish and wet hands with it.

Cut dough into small balls (size of bubble gum)

Shape into a smooth ball, flatten with palm of hand

Punch around the outside of the ball 5 times to shape into a star

Place stars on tray lined with parchment paper

Indent each star lightly in the center (to avoid puffing up)

Place tray in another, empty tray (to avoid burning the bottom of

cookies)

9. Bake stars in a 450º F oven for 7-10 minutes (they should remain pale)

Ella Sax’s Rice Pudding

November 1, 2012

Author: David Sax

“Granny” Ella Sax’s signature dessert was her rice pudding, baked without dairy, studded with raisins, blanketed in cinnamon, and drenched in maple syrup. In her warm Montreal apartment, with its candy bowls and old world tchotchkes and hallways smelling of chicken soup, a casserole of rice pudding was always in the oven when we arrived from Toronto, as sure as her sweet and sour meatballs bubbled atop the stove. The aroma of those two dishes mingling in the same space form the perfume of memory for Granny Ella.

Granny grew up in Drummondville, a small Quebec town, east of Montreal, which is overwhelmingly French. I’ve been told she grew up in a priviledged family, with drivers, fine cars, and fur coats, but by the time we’d met, all that remained were photographs and antiques cluttering her apartment. My grandfather, Sam Sax, was a garment worker, and from what I heard, Granny Ella never let him forget that. She consistently held to the idea, throughout her life, that she was Austrian gentry, descended from landed Jewish nobility in the heart of Europe’s cultural capital. She dressed impeccably, accessorizing with scarves and costume jewelry befitting a duchess, and spoke as though she’d just stepped off a carriage into a ballroom, greeting everyone with a drawn out “Hellooooo Dahhling”. You could almost hear the waltz playing in the background.

The truth, however, was that Granny’s family was from Bessarabia, which, although technically in the far flung corner of the Austro-Hungarian empire, is in fact current day Moldova, about as Viennese as colonial Haiti was Parisian. Two years ago, I was visiting Romania, and ate at the house of a Jewish cook there, who served a baked rice pudding. It was nearly close to Granny’s, with no dairy, baked rice, raisins, and tons of cinnamon. The maple syrup, Granny’s decidedly Quebec touch, was replaced with fruit preserves, but otherwise it was similar in many ways.

“This is my grandmother’s recipe,” the woman told me. “She came from Bessarabia.” When I came home, I told my father and my aunts, which soon provoked the usual arguments. “Mom was Austrian” vs “Mom was Hungarian” vs “No, she was Bessarabian”. What I thought was definitive proof proved no more final than her recipe itself, which omits what kind of rice to use, its consistency, and how much maple syrup. Like its namesake, it’s best shrouded in mystery, left up to the next generation to shape to their narrative.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cup(s)s Rice

3 Cup(s)s water

1 cup(s) raisins

1-4 Tbsp vegetable oil

2 egg beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup(s) Brown sugar

lots of cinnamon

1 apple peeled and grated

Preparation:

1. Cook rice in water just until all water is absorbed.

2. While rice is cooking, combine oil, eggs, vanilla, brown sugar and lots of cinnamon (the more the better) in a large bowl.

3. Combine with rice, raisins and apple until well mixes together, place in an 8-inch square pyrex pan, sprinkle liberally with cinnamon, and bake, covered, at 350 for 1 hour.

Serve warm with maple syrup.

Grandma’s Mandelbrot

November 27, 2012

Author: Jason Turbow

My grandmother was a wonderful cook, within a narrow scope. By which I mean that she was a wonderful Jewish cook. She came to Brooklyn from a shtetl in Eastern Europe at a very young age, eventually settling in Southern California to raise her family. And she knew only one way of cooking: brisket, potatoes, latkes, matzoh ball soup. The standards.

My favorite was her Mandelbrot, complete with chocolate chips and a sprinkling of cinnamon on top. Because she was picky, she put her own spin on it, substituting walnuts for the almonds (the “mandel” part of the name, no less), among other tweaks.

She made Mandelbrot for every occasion—usually happy, sometimes sad—at which the family would gather. My mother picked up the tradition in our own house, and just a whiff of the stuff baking tells me that we’ll soon be surrounded by loved ones. It also brings me back to a little yellow kitchen in Tajunga, and a woman whose primary expression of love occurred over an oven, baking delights that continue to keep her memory tangible, all these years later.

Ingredients:

Beat 3 eggs

Add 1 c. sugar

1 c. vegetable oil

3 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. vanilla

Add about 1 c. chopped walnuts

1 ½ c. chocolate chips

Preparation:

Let the dough rest for about ½ hour to firm up.

Grease a 9 ½” x 11” cookie sheet.

Form three strips of dough lengthwise on cookie sheet.

Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar (about 4 to 1, sugar to cinnamon).

Bake at 350º for about 45 minutes. Turn off oven. Cut strips into slices, separate the slices and return to oven to dry out.

Chocolate Babka

December 26, 2012

Author: Chef Micah Wexler

Ingredients:

Challah

y:6 pieces

Bread Flour 172g or about 5 Cups

Water 112g or about 1/2 Cup

Yeast 1g or about .35 Teaspoon

Salt 3g or about 1/2 Teaspoon

Water 154g or about 2/3 Cup

Yeast 4g or about 2/3 Teaspoon

Sugar 71g or about 1/3 Cup

Bread Flour 400g or just under 3 Cups

Eggs 2 each

Salt 8g or about 2 Teaspoons

Butter, cubed 90g or about 2/5 Cup

Milk 14g or about 1 Tablespoon

Babka Filling

y:1qt

Chocolate chips 390g or about 2 Cups

Sugar 75g or just over 1/3 Cup

Salt ¾ tsp

Ground Cinnamon 1 ½ tsp

Butter 67g or about 3/10 Cup

Streusel Topping

y:1qt

AP Flour ½ cup

Powdered Sugar ½ + 1/3 cup

Butter 6 Tablespoons

Preparation:

Challah

1) Mix bread flour, water, yeast and salt til it becomes a dough.

2) Proof for at least 1 hr in a covered, oiled container. The starter can sit in the refrigerator

overnight to develop more flavor.

3) Mix water yeast and sugar in a stand mixer with the paddle, let sit for 5 minutes for the yeast

to bloom.

4) Mix in bread flour and the starter.

5) Gradually mix in eggs and then add in the salt and milk.

6) Add the cubed butter in pieces, then turn mixer up to medium setting until the dough comes

together. Allow to mix for approximately 8 minutes.

7) Proof dough for an hour, and then divide evenly into 6 balls. Store on a sprayed parchment,

covered with plastic wrap in the refrigerator.

Babka Filling

1) In a food processor, mix chocolate chips, sugar, salt, and cinnamon until crumbly.

2) Add cubed butter until the blend is crumbly and mixed.

Streusel Topping

1) In a stand mixer with paddle attachment, mix flour and sugar.

2) Gradually add cubed butter until pea-sized pieces form. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3) Roll out two pieces of challah until approximately 1⁄2” thick.

4) Place 1/3c of the filling in the center of the dough.

5) Spread the filling all over, leaving a 1⁄2” border on one side.

6) Roll out the dough like a cigar toward the edge

7) Pinch the edges so that the filling doesn’t fall out. Repeat for the other piece of dough.

8) Once you have both pieces done, twist them together and pinch the edges.

9) Place in an 8×4 loaf pan, eggwash the top and cover with a handful of streusel.

10) Bake in 375F oven until golden brown.

Not Your Bubbie’s Banana Bread

December 27, 2012

Author: Naomi Leight

A take on Bubbie’s Banana Bread.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas

1/4 cup applesauce

1/3 cup plain yogurt

2 tbsp. brown sugar

1 1/2 cups to 2 cups white whole wheat flour

1/2 tbsp baking powder

Preparation:

Mix all wet ingredients.

Incorporate dry ingredients

Spray pan.

Bake at 350 degrees in loaf pan or muffin tin for 25 minutes

Sprinkle Chia seeds, oats or almond slivers for decoration and extra crunch.

Chocolate-Toffee Cookies

December 27, 2012

Author: Lillian Moon

Ingredients:

1 c. butter

1 1/2 c. brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 1/2 c. AP flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cups milk chocolate chips

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

2/3 cup toffee baking chips

1 c. chopped pecans

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease cookie sheets.

Mix butter and sugar, beat in eggs one at a time then stir in vanilla.

Combine flour baking powder and salt.

Stir into cream mixture.

Stir in chocolate and toffee.

Drop tbsps. onto cookie sheets.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Allow cookies to cool.

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

December 27, 2012

Author: Eliav Rodman

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 small pkg instant vanilla pudding mix

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 pkg (12 oz) milk chocolate chips

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat the butter, both sugars, pudding mix, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat until creamy and fluffy. Then slowly mix in flour and baking soda. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop by tablespoonfuls, onto an un-greased cookie sheet. Bake for ONLY 9-10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool about 10 minutes before eating.

Citrus Trainwreck Cookie

December 27, 2012

Author: Flori Schutzer

This recipe can be simplified by choosing just one variety of citrus to use throughout. Make it you own. It is vital to use really good olive oil. I love the oils that I get from Pasolivo in Paso Robles. Our own local California oil- super tasty and family owned. Keep your carbon footprint small!

Ingredients:

1/3 cup poppy seeds

2 tablespoons or more to taste freshly grated lemon, orange, lime and tangerine zests

1 cup whole milk

2 eggs

1 1/3 cups sugar

2 cups flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup each orange (or tangerine), lemon and lime oils

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preparation:

In a bowl, combine the poppy seeds, zest and milk. Set aside to soak for at least 1 hour or refrigerated overnight. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 6-cup loaf pan with parchment paper. In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or using a hand mixer), whip the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy.

In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients together. With the mixer running, drizzle the oil and vanilla extract into the egg mixture. With the mixer still running, add alternating batches of dry ingredients and poppy seed-milk mixture to the egg mixture. The batter will be somewhat thin. Pour into the prepared pan. (there will be enough leftover batter to fill a muffin cup or two for the cook and assistant)

Bake 60 to 75 minutes until the center is raised and cracked and the whole cake is firm and dry on the top. Muffins will be cooked after about 30-45 minutes. Be sure to let the cake bake thoroughly or it will fall. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and continue cooling before serving.

Italian Chanukah Jelly

December 28, 2012

Author: Tara Berger

Ingredients:

3 large eggs

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 pound or 1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

Blackberry Jam or Nutella for filling

Vegetable oil, for frying

Preparation:

In a large saucepan, heat 2 inches of vegetable oil at 375 degrees.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat the eggs, granulated sugar and vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the ricotta and beat until smooth. Add the flour and baking powder and beat just until blended. (if making ahead of time- take out of the fridge 10 minutes before cooking to get batter to room temp)

Using a very small ice cream scoop or 2 teaspoons, slide 8 walnut-sized rounds of batter into the hot oil. Fry over moderate heat until deep golden all over and cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes. Balls should rise to the top as they puff up. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the balls to the cookie sheet to drain. Continue frying the remaining fritters in batches of 8.

Arrange the fritters on a platter- using a small melon baller scoop our top of ball- fill with jelly or nutella place ball back in and dust well with confectioners’ sugar.

Kate’s Plum Torte

December 28, 2012

Author: Lauren Gordon

Ingredients

1/4 lb (1 stick) butter, softened

3/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp sugar

1 cup unbleached flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

pinch of salt

6-8 plums, or apples, or fruit, sliced or split in half

1tsp cinnamon or more, to taste

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and 3/4 cup sugar. Add flour, baking powder, eggs and salt and mix well. Spoon batter into an ungreased 9″ or 10″ springform pan. Cover the batter with fruit. Mix the cinnamon with the remained sugar and sprinkle over the top. Bake 40-50 minutes until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove and let cool.

Delicious Apple Pie

December 28, 2012

Author: Lois Brenner

Ingredients:

Filling:

12 large Granny Smith or Pippin apples, peeled, sliced 1/3″

3/4 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup white sugar

1/3 cup bisquick

1 heaping tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg (fresh grated)

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tablespoons each lemon and orange juice

1/4 cup good cognac

3-4 Tablespoons unsalted butter

Crust:

2 cups flour or Bisquick

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1/3 cup vegetable shortening

Preparation:

Mix apples slices with filling ingredients. Add juices and cognac last, mixing well.

Stir flour and salt together. Cut in shortening and butter. Add just enough water to make soft dough. Can use food processor, do not over mix.

Roll out crust, flute edges to seal 10″X14″X2″ pan. Sprinkle with granulated sugar, make slits in pie to allow steam to escape. FIlling should be bubbling when the pie is done!

Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, then at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, till crust is brown, apples juicy. Cover with foil tent if top becomes to brown.

Serves 10

Matzo Meal Rolls

December 28, 2012

Author: Ann Becker

These two recipes come from Janie Krantz who hails from Sioux City, Iowa, which she says had a large, vibrant Jewish community. She and her aunt think these are the right version of the recipes their Bubbie, Fanni Kantrovich who was from Kiev, used to make. Though who can tell when she always made everything impromptu with no recipe cards in sight!

Ingredients

1/2 c. Crisco

1 c. boiling water

1 t. salt

1 T. sugar

2 c. matzo meal

4 eggs

Preparation

Add fat to boiling water in a sauce pan. Stir in dry ingredients. Beat over low heat until mixture leaves sides of pan. Remove from heat and put in bowl. Beat in 1 egg at a time. Batter should be thick and smooth. Shape into 8 balls and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour until browned. Serve as rolls or cut in half and fill as a sandwich.

Strudel

December 28, 2012

Author: Janie Krantz

Ingredients

½ pound soft butter

2 c. flour

5 T. water

1 T. vinegar

1 egg

cinnamon

sugar

tart jam

nuts

coconut

powdered sugar

Preparation

Dough: Cut together the soft butter and flour like pie dough. Then add the next three ingredients and work together. Divide into 4 parts – refrigerate for an hour. Roll out very thin. Sprinkle with cinnamon, sugar, tart jam, nuts, and coconut. Roll up like a jelly roll. Seal ends. Bake 1 hr at 325 degrees on a flat pan. Cut while warm. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Poppy Seed (Mun) Cookies

January 11, 2013

Author: koshereye

There were so many foods tied to my childhood via both of my grandmothers – they were excellent cooks and never really used the standard measuring utensils. My maternal grandmother, Eva Greenberg, would use her little, plump hands to measure the ingredients. When my mother would watch her bake and ask “Mom, but how much flour or eggs?” The response would always be her cupping her hands and answering – “This much.”

This recipe for Mun Cookies was my mother’s favorite and she somehow managed to convert her mother’s recipe. They are not too sweet, firm in texture, and perfect for dunking into coffee or tea. My little grandmother would sit with my mother at the kitchen table and have her cup of tea, with a sugar cube in her mouth, sip the tea and dunk her cookies. The cookies were always stored in a old cookie tin. Both of them are no longer here, so for me, the cookies are delicious because they taste of sweet memories.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup oil

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 cup poppy seeds

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 tablespoons baking powder

3 eggs

Preparation:

Well greased cookie sheets.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix the oil and sugar until blended.

Beat the eggs; add the vanilla and poppy and add to the sugar/oil mixture.

Mix the flour and baking powder together and add to the above mixture until well blended.

Roll out dough on a well floured board – should be thin. Cut out round cookie shapes (Grandmom used a glass that she would dip in flour), and place on greased cookie sheets. Gather the scraps and start over with the rolling and cutting.

Bake 10-15 minutes or until brown.

Yield: Who knows? All I can remember is that she made a ton and they didn’t last.

Posted in Baked Goods and Desserts

Tags: baking powder, cookies, desserts, eggs, flour, oil, Poppy Seed, poppy seeds, sugar, vanilla

Savtah Cookie Dough

February 6, 2013

Author: Tamar Genger

I grew up in Florida, but the rest of my family, uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents all lived in Toronto. I didn’t get to see my grandparents all the time, but I did get to see them for a few months during the winter when they would escape the cold and a few weeks in the summer when we would escape the heat. In either Toronto or Florida, most of my memories revolve around food.

My Bubbie (my father’s mother) always gave us Nips and her friends in the condo gave us chocolate covered candy sticks. Bubbie would make cornflake crumb chicken and farfel and corn and we loved it. My mother’s mother, we called Savta, was not much of a cook, but boy could she bake.

Every time we visited Savta she would have a batch of Savta cookies waiting for us. Not much to them, they are a basic sugar cookie, but they tasted amazing and were so versatile. We used this dough to make plain cookies, to make hamantaschen and even rolled rugelach-style cookies using the dough. I still make these cookies every year! I will always call them Savta cookies and I hope that I can pass on my memories of my beloved Savta to my kids when we bake together.

This dough is wonderful as a plain cookie, which is why it also works beautifully for hamantashen and even rugelach. Visit Joy of Kosher for additional recipes.

Ingredients:

Makes about 36 cookies depending on the size

• 1 cup margarine

• 1 cup Sugar

• 2 Eggs

• 21/2 cups Flour

• 21/2 tsp. baking powder

• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Preparation:

1 Mix margarine, sugar and vanilla in food processor. Add eggs. In a separate bowl mix 2½ teaspoons baking powder with 2½ cups flour. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and mix until dough forms.

2 Roll out dough and use as you like.

3 Bake at 400 for 12 minutes.

4 Variation: You can substitute 1 teaspoon lemon juice for the vanilla and it will make it crispier.

Bubby Ginsberg’s Strudel

February 7, 2013

Author: Shira Ginsberg

The women in my family were always busy in my Bubby’s Kitchen, mixing three cups of wisdom for every two cups of Matzo meal into whatever recipe they were preparing.

And there was always something mouthwatering in the over, the smell of the mandel bread and rugalach alone could make you cry…but to taste – forget about it, heaven on earth..

And then there was my Bubby’s Strudel. Saved for ‘the company’ NOT, for your everyday meal. Bubby’s strudel was served on her finest dishes, table set, and ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS with a glazele tea made from a re-used tea bag sitting in a little dish on the windowsill.. waste not want not.

To eat this strudel is to be back on 103 Nyroy Drive, surrounded by family, love, comfort, and of course, a table filled with ‘company’

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Ingredients:

Dough:

4 cups of flour

4 sticks of butter

1 cup sour cream

Mix all together. Knead.

Refrigerate apx. 2 hours

Filling 1 jar strawberry preserves

1/2 cup walnuts chopped

1 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Combine sugar, nuts cinnamon

Preparation:

Roll 1/4 dough into large circle on slightly floured surface. Spread filling. Sprinkle with nut, sugar and cinnamon.

Fold top and then sides and roll to form log. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Remove, cool, slice, share with some local yentas.

Blueberry Crumble

March 11, 2013

Author: Aviva Kanoff

This recipe comes from No-Potato Passover, now available on Amazon.com

Ingredients:

Blueberry Filling:

4 cups fresh blueberries

¼ cup white sugar

(do not add sugar if blueberries are naturally very sweet)

juice of 1 lemon

Crust and Crumb Topping:

¾ cup white sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

2 cups ground almonds

2 cups matzo cake meal

¼ tsp. salt

zest of 1 lemon

¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter or

margarine, cold and cut into cubes

1 egg

¼ cup toasted slivered almonds

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 375° and grease a 9×13-inch baking pan.

2. In a mixing bowl combine the blueberry filling ingredients. Stir until mixed well and set aside.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together the white sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, ground almonds, cake meal, salt, and lemon zest until well combined. Add the butter and egg, and use a pastry cutter to blend the ingredients until well combined and you still have pea-sized chunks of butter. Mix in the slivered almonds.

4. Place half of the crust mixture into the baking dish and press it firmly into the bottom. Spoon the blueberry mixture into crust, being careful not to add too much of the liquid.

5. Crumble the rest of the crust mixture over the blueberries so that it is evenly distributed. Bake for 50 minutes until the crumb topping is golden brown.

6. Let cool for at least an hour before cutting. Cut into 24 squares. This dish is best served just slightly above room temperature, but any leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator.

Indian Rolled Sweet Potato with Nuts

March 12, 2013

Author: JDCEntwine

A specialty of the Bene Israel community; recipe courtesy of Rosy Solomon Moses of Mumbai, India. Read more about the JDC in India.

Ingredients:

• 1lb sweet potatoes

• 2 tablespoons mashed dates • Almonds, pistachios, and

cashews

Preparation:

Boil sweet potatoes with a little salt. When tender, peel and mash potatoes. Add the mashed dates.

Mix and create small balls.

Crush equal parts almonds, pistachios, and cashews together (around 1/2 cup). Roll the balls in crushed nuts and serve.

Amma Zahara’s Ka’aka

April 8, 2013

Author: Leah Hadad

Not my grandmother, Amma Zahra is my honorary Bubbie. She treated my siblings and me, as she would have had her own grandchildren. Growing up, I spent more time with her than I did with my grandmothers. When my mother was at work, she babysat us. She was my maternal great aunt. Yemenite Arabic draws a distinction between maternal and paternal aunts and uncles. Amma is the word denoting a paternal aunt. Zahra was also my mother’s name until she immigrated to Israel, upon which time she was assigned the name Sarah. Her aunt kept her original name – Zahra, the morning star.

Amma Zahara always seemed very old to my young eyes. She was believed to have been born at 1895, which would place her in her mid 60s when I was born. When I think back, she had to have been older than that. Even in my early memories, her face is a weave of deep, close-knit wrinkles. Her eyes imparted kindness and wisdom, and I remember her as warm and good-natured. From many miles away years later, she still occupies a special place in my heart.

In those simpler times, Amma Zahra fit the bill of an Eshet Hayil. I watched her cook, bake, clean, and do the laundry. She also found time for sewing, Yemenite style embroidery, and basket weaving. Her ‘kitchen’ was a small corner of her one room residence. There, she squatted in front of a portable, single-burner kerosene stove, prevalent in 1950s Israel. She practiced old-world cooking, utilizing every edible portion of the raw food; nothing was wasted.

While she kept herself busy, she always made time for her afternoon Yemenite coffee into which she dunked ka’aka. It was the time to visit with family, friends, and neighbors. Shoot the breeze. That generation knew to take the time for rest and to find joy in the small things. It is those simpler pleasures that I miss when I think about Amma Zahra and to which this ka’aka takes me back.

Ka’aka is a pastry type prevalent in the Arab world and is known also as ka’ak. There are many variations, sweet and savory. By sweet, I do not mean the sweet concoctions to which we are accustomed these days. Sugar was then used as a condiment, not a main ingredient.

In the recipe I offer here, I re-imagine the ka’aka I remember. In Israel, Yemenite immigrants adapted their cooking to local, cheaper ingredients. This pastry was most likely been baked originally with ghee – clarified butter – or olive oil; today, in Israel, it is baked with margarine. I am using butter and a mix of all-purpose flour and whole grain wheat because even the ‘clean’ flour in Yemen was in all likelihood less refined than ours. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

Makes 14-16 cakes

1 c unsalted butter

3 c AP flour  (350 g)

1 1/3 c whole wheat flour (150 g)

1/2 c sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

1/4 c ice cold water

2 Tbsp. Sesame or nigella (black seed)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°;

Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix with a wooden spoon or by hand until dough comes together.  It will be soft and a bit tacky.  Alternatively, use a food processor and mix for about 7-10 min.;

Tear a chunk from the dough and with cup of your hands form into a ball (65 g).  It should be 2 “ in diameter;

Place on an oiled or parchment-covered baking sheet.  Press the ball gently with the palms your hands to flatten;

Spread seeds on top and bake for 25 min.  You could brush top with egg wash, but it is not necessary.

Enjoy!

Savtah’s Custard

April 9, 2013

Author: Kitchen Tested

When I think back to my Savtah’s kitchen growing up, I can still taste the Israeli cous cous, sweet and sour tongue, candy cane ice cream, fluffy meringues and lots of pistachios. But one memory I don’t have is of this breakfast custard that my sisters rave about. My Savtah used to bake a dozen (or more) individual custards and leave them in the fridge for everyone to snack on all week. You could eat them at any time of the day but they were especially delicious at breakfast. So how could I not make this recipe in my own kitchen and hopefully start a new tradition with my husband and children. When I tasted my very first bite, I tried to picture myself standing in my grandparent’s kitchen with my sisters, snacking on custard right in front of the fridge. Sure, the memory isn’t real, but the custard sure is!

Originally published on Kitchen Tested.

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups water

1 1/4 cup non-fat dry milk

3 eggs

1 Tbsp honey

1 tsp vanilla

nutmeg, for garnish

*if you want sweet custard, add 1 Tbsp vanilla sugar

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare six custard cups with cooking spray and place them in a baking pan filled half way with water.

With an immersion blender, blender or food processor, blend the water, dry milk, eggs, vanilla and honey. If you want your custard to be sweet, add the vanilla sugar and blend. Ladle the custard into the cups and sprinkle with nutmeg.

Bake until set, around 35 minutes. Cool 1-2 hours on the counter then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 5 days…if they last that long.