passover week - passover 3 nut cake

passover week - passover 3 nut cake

30 Mar 2015

Welcome to this year’s Passover week. As usual, I’ll be doing a mix of tried and true recipes adapted for Passover and some new to me recipes. I'm travelling on Friday so I might not have time to post so Passover week may stretch out into next week.  

Now you will need to do some preparation for this year’s recipes.  

• Passover certified brown sugar and Passover vanilla extract will need to be sourced as well as some Tate and Lyle golden syrup. 
• You’ll also need superfine matzo meal and potato flour (starch) to make the Passover baking mix. To make the Passover baking mix, thoroughly combine equal quantities of superfine matzo meal and potato flour (starch) which you’ll use instead of flour.  
• If you can’t source Passover icing (confectioner’s) sugar you can make some by blitzing sugar in a food processor or just leaving it out.  
• To make caster sugar you’ll need to whiz regular sugar in the food processor.  
• This year, you may even need to candy lemon rind and make condensed milk from scratch, so you've been warned! Recipes and instructions to follow over the next few days.

The first recipe is one that’s new to me. It’s the Three Nut Cake from Belinda Jeffrey's Mix and Bake and as the cake only uses a small amount of flour I thought it would be pretty easy to make a Passover friendly version. 

You need to use a lot of nuts and coconut for this cake and I’m warning you it produces a pretty chewy result. The pastry is quite crumbly, so don’t fret if you can’t cut a perfect slice of cake because I couldn’t either.  

Here's the recipe for you.  For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.   

Three Nut Cake – makes a 17 cm cake. 

This quantity of pastry is sufficient for a 23 cm cake. If you make a 17 cm cake, you'll only need to use half the pastry for this recipe. You can wrap the remaining pastry in plastic wrap and store in the freezer for another cake or use the pastry to bake some tart shells. If you'd like to make a 23 cm cake, just double the filling quantities and proceed. The original recipe used one less egg yolk but as the Passover baking mix absorbs more liquid than regular flour I think the extra egg yolk will be needed. The baking time will remain the same and please be careful not to overcook the cake as it will dry out, so start testing at about 25 minutes. 

Ingredients 

Crust 
120g almond meal 
2½ tablespoons caster sugar 
3½ tablespoons Passover baking mix 
75g very cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks 

Filling 
60g toasted hazelnuts 
50g toasted pecans 
¼ cup Passover baking mix 
½ cup shredded or flaked coconut 
1 egg 
1 egg yolk 
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar 
½ teaspoon Passover vanilla extract 

Decorations 

Sifted icing sugar 

60 gm Passover dark chocolate, melted  

Method 
1) Heat oven to 180°C/350°F. Have a 17cm springform tin ready. There is no need to grease or line the tin.  
2) For the crust, put the almond meal, sugar and Passover baking mix into a food processor and whiz together until combined. Add the butter and whiz some more until it forms coarse breadcrumbs.  Press the crumbs into the base of the cake tin and about ⅓ up the sides of the tin. Put in the fridge to chill.  
3) For the filling, coarsely grind the hazelnuts, and then the pecans in the food processor. Sift the Passover baking mix into a bowl then add the ground hazelnuts, the ground pecans and coconut and whisk everything together.  
4) Either in a stand mixer using the whisk attachment or using electric hand beaters beat together the whole egg, the egg yolk and brown sugar until it is light and fluffy. 

5) Gently fold the nut mixture and vanilla into the egg mixture until it’s well combined.  
6) Pour the batter into the chilled crust and level the top before baking in the 180°C/350°F oven for 30-40 minutes or until the top of the cake is just dry but an inserted skewer comes out with moist crumbs. Start testing at about 25 minutes.
7) Cool on wire rack before releasing the springform tin and removing cake.  

8) To serve lightly dust the top of the cake with homemade icing sugar and decorate with a little melted chocolate if desired and a good dollop of cream.  

The cake keeps in the freezer for up to 3 weeks. If you are a margarine user, (I'm not) you could substitute it for the butter in the pastry converting this into a pareve dessert with maybe some vanilla bean scented almond milk ice cream on the side or whipped coconut cream.

See you all again tomorrow for another Passover baking treat.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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hot cross bun kugelhopf

hot cross bun kugelhopf

23 Mar 2015

Just before Passover arrives I get a hankering for hot cross buns. On Sunday I decided to make some hot cross buns but at the last minute decided to bake the mixture in a kugelhopf tin.

I made the dough then realised I didn't have enough currants and sultanas in the cupboard so off to the shops I went. As the dough was already resting in the fridge I changed the technique a little by soaking the fruit first then adding the plumped fruit to the dough after it's first rise.



As I'd not baked the kugelhopf version before I wasn't sure the best way to shape the dough. I did 2 layers, the first layer used a cylinder of dough. For the second layer I formed it into small buns. Next time I'd probably just use the cylinder method.



Once the kugelhopf came out of the oven, I turned it out and returned it to the oven to crisp up a little before glazing the outside. A little dusting of icing sugar and the kugelhopf was camera ready.

Here's the recipe for you, adapted from a Margaret Fulton Hot Cross Bun recipe. If you'd like to make regular hot cross buns, this recipe will make 8 buns. If you'd like to make a larger kugelhopf or 16 buns, just double all the ingredients and follow the instructions. 

For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Hot Cross Bun Kugelhopf

Ingredients

¼ cup mixed peel, sultanas and currants

boiling water

2 cups bread or plain flour

½ tsp mixed spice

¼ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

30g (1 oz) butter, softened, plus extra to serve

¼ cup caster sugar

1 x 7g sachet (1½ tsp) dried yeast

1 egg, lightly beaten
100 mls lukewarm milk/water

extra milk, for glazing

Glaze

2 tbs warm water

1 tbs sugar

¼ tsp gelatine

To serve, icing sugar, butter and jam.

Method

Place dried fruit in a small bowl. Cover with boiling water and leave for an hour until the fruit is soft and plump. Drain off the water.

Sift the flour, spices and salt into a bowl. Using a dough hook or by hand, rub in the butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and yeast.

Make a well in the centre of dry ingredients. Combine the egg with the milk/water mix and gradually add to the flour mix to form a soft dough. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic or mix in the stand mixer using the dough hook for 7 – 8 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a clean, greased bowl. Turn over once so that top of dough is greased.

Cover bowl completely with plastic wrap and a tea towel. Leave to rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours or until doubled in bulk. At this stage you can put the covered dough in the fridge overnight, otherwise gently knead in the drained dried fruit mixture.

Lightly grease a small Kugelhopf tin. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently roll out to form a long sausage. Cut into equal halves and place in the base of the Kugelhopf tin, gently squeezing the two ends of the dough together. Place the tin into a large plastic bag and leave to rise in a warm place for 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200ºC/400°F. Place a small container of cold water on the lowest shelf of the oven. Brush the top of the kugelhopf with the extra milk and bake for 20 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Meanwhile make the glaze by stirring together the water, sugar and gelatine in a small container. Heat the mixture in the microwave for 30 seconds to a minute or until the gelatine is completely dissolved.

When the kugelhopf is cooked, remove it from oven and unmould it onto a rack. Return the kugelhopf to the oven still on the rack and cook for a further 5 minutes to crisp the outside. Remove the kugelhopf from the oven and liberally brush the outside with the glaze and return the kugelhopf to the turned off oven until the glaze is dry. Lightly sprinkle the kugelhopf with icing sugar just before serving. The kugelhopf can be served warm from the oven, cold or even better, with lashings of butter.



I hope you enjoyed my twist on hot cross buns. See you all again next week for Passover week.

Jillian

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ottolenghi's sweetcorn slaw

ottolenghi's sweetcorn slaw

16 Mar 2015

As I'm sure you know by now, I'm an unabashed Ottolenghi fan. When Juliana and I were trying to choose a recipe for our last Plate 2 Plate column, Juliana suggested this recipe for sweetcorn slaw from Ottolenghi's book, Plenty More.

I'd already decided to make some oven fried chicken and faux chips for my dinner and thought this would be the perfect accompaniment. I picked up some corn and cabbage and a few herbs and put this together.

I don't eat mayonnaise so I used Greek yoghurt in the dressing instead. As with all Ottolenghi recipes, this one was bursting with flavour but I found pickling the vegetables made them a tad soggy and I'm not keen on soggy.

I've made this recipe a second time but this time I didn't brine the vegetables. I'm not sure which version I prefer.

Here's the original recipe for you, which serves six.

Sweetcorn Slaw
100ml white wine vinegar
200ml water
Salt and black pepper
¼ white cabbage, shredded: 300g net
3 carrots, julienned
1 small red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
4 corn cobs, lightly brushed with olive oil
2 red chillies, finely chopped
20g picked coriander leaves
20g picked mint leaves
Olive oil

For the dressing
50g mayonnaise
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1½ tsp sunflower oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic, crushed 

For the dressing
Put the vinegar, water and a tablespoon of salt into a small saucepan, bring up to a boil and remove from the heat.

Put the cabbage and carrot in a bowl, pour over two-thirds of the salty liquid and set aside to soften for 20 minutes. Pour the remaining liquid over the onion and, again, set aside for 20 minutes. Rinse the vegetables and onion, pat dry, put in a large bowl and set aside.

Put a ridged chargrill pan on a high heat and, when it starts to smoke, lay the corn on it. Chargrill for 10-12 minutes, turning so that all sides get some colour (this will create quite a lot of smoke). Remove from the heat and, when cool enough to handle, use a large knife to shave off the corn in clumps and add to the salad bowl.

Whisk together all the ingredients for the dressing, pour over the salad and stir gently. Add the chilli, coriander and mint, along with a grind of black pepper, give it another gentle stir and serve.



The char grilled corn is very yummy so I guess I've just added another recipe to my Ottolenghi repertoire.

Did I mention that I'll be doing Passover week again this year? I still have 2 more things to bake so at the moment I'm knee deep in superfine matzo meal, potato flour, nuts, chocolate, coconut and eggs. All will be revealed soon!

See you all again next week,

Jillian

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