passover week 2019 - churros with salted caramel sauce

passover week 2019 - churros with salted caramel sauce

18 Apr 2019

I have a confession to make. I've never eaten churros before, let alone made any. I also don't eat deep fried food so what possessed me to make churros is beyond me.



I found a recipe on the internet and discovered that churros are essentially fried choux pastry usually served with chocolate sauce but on this occasion, salted caramel sauce.





Now matzo meal makes excellent choux pastry (don't ask me how or why) so I figured I could easily convert the recipe to make passover churros. 



I made the choux dough, piped it, deep fried it, rolled it in cinnamon sugar then had to stop myself from eating the entire batch. They were so good!



Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. 

Churros with salted caramel sauce – makes 24

Ingredients
250ml (1 cup) water
80g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 cup superfine matzo meal
Large pinch salt
2 eggs, at room temperature
100g (½ cup) caster sugar, extra, to roll
½ tsp cinnamon
Vegetable oil, to deep fry

Salted caramel sauce
100g (½ cup) caster sugar
60ml (¼ cup) water
80ml (⅓ cup) double cream
Sea salt flakes

Salted caramel sauce
Stir sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat, brushing down the side of pan occasionally with a wet pastry brush for 5 minutes or until the sugar dissolves. Increase heat to high. Bring to the boil. Boil the caramel, without stirring, for 5 minutes or until deep golden. Remove from the heat and carefully stir in the cream (mixture may spit). Set caramel sauce aside for 15 minutes to thicken slightly. Add a sprinkle of sea salt flakes to taste.

Churros
Stir the water, butter and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until mixture comes to the boil. Add matzo meal and salt and stir with a wooden spoon for 1 minute or until the dough comes away from the side of the pan. Set aside for 5 minutes.

Transfer dough to a large bowl. Use electric beaters to beat eggs into dough, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, until well combined. Spoon into a large piping bag fitted with a 1.5 cm fluted nozzle. Place the extra sugar on a plate and stir in the cinnamon until well combined.

Pour oil into saucepan to reach a depth of 6 cm. Heat oil over medium heat until it reaches 180°C . Pipe four 12 cm lengths into oil, cutting dough with a knife. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until golden. Drain on paper towel. Toss in the cinnamon sugar. Repeat with remaining dough, reheating oil. Serve hot with the caramel sauce.



These were delicious plain but with the salted caramel sauce. Ooh la la! The salted caramel sauce was so good one of my workmates asked if she could take the leftovers home with her.




I'd run not walk to make these again next Passover. See you all tomorrow with the last of my Passover bakes for 2019.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2019 - chocolate nemesis cake

passover week 2019 - chocolate nemesis cake

17 Apr 2019

The recipe for the River Cafe's chocolate nemesis cake has been around for a long time but until now I'd never attempted it. With Passover just around the corner it seemed a perfect time to make this flourless chocolate cake but I won't say making this cake went smoothly. 

The recipe I followed recommended allowing the cake to cool whilst still in the water bath. Unfortunately despite my careful wrapping, the springform tin sprang a leak and when I unmoulded the cake I found the base very runny. I re-wrapped the cake tin in plastic wrap, followed by 2 layers of foil which I tied up with string and returned the cake to the oven and baked it for another hour until the base had reset.

The original recipe makes a huge cake so I've scaled the recipe down to make a 17cm cake. The original recipe can be found here. While I made the cake using butter I'm sure you could use a mild flavoured olive oil to make the cake, rendering it gluten free, dairy free and Passover friendly. 

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm cake with my revised baking instructions. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

The Chocolate Nemesis Cake – adapted from the River Cafe

Ingredients

220g dark chocolate 70%, broken into small pieces
100g unsalted butter, softened
3 whole eggs

Pinch salt
¾ cup caster sugar

¼ cup water

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease a 17cm cake tin and dust it with cocoa powder tapping out any excess then line the base of the pan with baking paper. If using a spring form pan, wrap plastic wrap around the tin before taking a piece of aluminium foil and wrapping it around the cake tin making sure it goes all the way up to the outer rim. The cake will be baked in a bain marie and the plastic wrap and foil should stop any water leaking into the cake mixture.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler or in the microwave, removing as soon as the butter has melted. Stir until the chocolate has completely melted then set aside. In a small pan heat the remaining sugar with the water and cook gently until the sugar completely dissolves forming a syrup. Pour the hot syrup over the chocolate and butter mixture and stir to combine. Set aside and allow to cool slightly.

In a stand mixer, beat the eggs with a ¼ cup caster sugar and a pinch of salt for 10 minutes or until they've quadrupled in volume. Reduce the speed of the mixer and slowly add the warm chocolate and syrup mixture to the eggs and continue to beat gently until combined. The mixture will lose volume. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and rap firmly on the bench top to remove any air bubbles 

Cover the top of the cake with a piece of foil. Put a folded tea towel into the bottom of a deep sided oven dish and place the cake on top. This will prevent the cake moving around. Pour hot water into the pan so that it comes halfway up the sides of the pan. Bake for 1¼ hours or until set. Remove the cake from pan of water and let it completely cool (at least 2 hours) before turning out of the tin. Store in the fridge until needed but bring to room temperature before serving.

The cake is delicious but really rich so serve small slices with a dollop of cream and a few raspberries. It’s equally good a few days later.

See you all again tomorrow with some more Passover baking.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2019 - raspberry almond squares

passover week 2019 - raspberry almond squares

16 Apr 2019

When I made the Louise cake with plums from Sweet by Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, I thought it would be quite easy to make a Passover friendly version.




The original Louise cake has a lemon flavoured shortbread base topped with raspberry jam and a layer of coconut meringue. For this incarnation I went back to the original raspberry jam layer but swapped the coconut in the meringue for flaked almonds.



I had a small piece as I was worried the jam would make the squares too sweet but my slice tasted just fine. I took this into work and waited for comments. No one seemed to notice anything untoward so I was satisfied I'd met my brief. 



Here's the recipe for you which makes 9 squares. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Raspberry almond squares
Base
75g unsalted butter, softened 
¼ cup caster sugar
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
½ cup superfine matzo meal
15g potato starch
Pinch salt
¼ cup almond meal
½ cup raspberry jam or jam of your choice

Meringue Topping

30 g flaked almonds, lightly toasted

2 large egg whites 

pinch salt

scant ½ cup caster sugar

Seeds of ½ vanilla bean

½ tsp lemon juice

½ tsp potato starch

Method

Heat the oven to 180°C.  Line the base and sides of a 7 inch square high-sided cake tin with baking parchment. 

To make the base, place the butter, sugar and lemon rind into a food processor and mix until the butter is light and creamy. Into a separate bowl, sift the matzo meal, the potato starch and salt then stir in the almond meal. Pour the flour mixture into the food processor and whiz. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and level the top with a spoon.  Bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly golden. 

While the base is baking prepare the meringue topping. To make the meringue, in the bowl of a stand mixer whisk the egg whites and salt on medium-high speed until soft peaks from. Add the sugar a tablespoon at a time and continue whisking on a high speed until the egg whites become stiff and glossy. Add the vanilla seeds, lemon juice and potato starch and whisk again. Finally, add the toasted flaked almonds. 

Spread the hot base with jam, then topping. Swirl the meringue around in order to get rough waves and peaks.  Bake for 40 minutes at 180°C or until the meringue has formed a crust and is lightly coloured. 

If the meringue is browning too quickly you may need to shield the top with a piece of baking paper. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool for at least 30 minutes before removing from the tin. Cut into 9 squares to serve.

See you all again tomorrow with some more baking for Passover week 2019.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2019 - blood orange marmalade cakes

passover week 2019 - blood orange marmalade cakes

15 Apr 2019

Welcome to Passover week 2019. Some of these recipes have been lurking in my Passover folder since last year whilst others I've recently located. The recipe for these blood orange marmalade cakes is a bit of a hybrid. I found a recipe for a gluten free mandarin orange blossom cake in a magazine, then realised it could be eaten at Passover and made dairy free as well with minimal tweaking.



Flicking through my copy of the Cook and Baker cookbook, I saw a picture of some mandarin marmalade cakes topped with flaked almonds and home made marmalade and completely stole the idea to come up with these little cakes.



I have a bottle of homemade blood orange marmalade hiding in the cupboard, so pulled it out to make these cakes. I figure you could use any Passover friendly homemade jam or marmalade to make these cakes. I'd pick something with a bit of tang and you could always change the citrus peel to match the flavour of the jam you use.



The original recipe used melted butter but I swapped it for olive oil to make the recipe dairy free.



Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. 

Blood orange marmalade cakes - makes 9 small cakes
Ingredients
2 eggs separated
Pinch salt
⅓ cup caster sugar
1 cup almond meal
30mls olive oil
2 tsp grated orange zest 
⅓ cup marmalade
¼ cup flaked almonds

Preheat oven to 170°C. Place 9 cupcake liners into a muffin tin or grease and line the base of each tin with a small piece of baking paper. I also floured the tins with some superfine matzo meal.

Place egg whites with a pinch of salt in a bowl and beat to soft peaks. Gradually add the caster sugar beating until dissolved. Continue to beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold in the egg yolks. Fold the almond meal, olive oil and orange zest through. Spoon into pans. 

Sprinkle a few flaked almonds over the tops of the cakes. Dollop a spoonful of marmalade over each cake then sprinkle remaining flaked almonds over the marmalade. Bake 25 – 30 minutes until the cakes are cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool completely in tin. Before serving you can sprinkle over some homemade icing sugar or leave plain.



I took these into work and they were a surprise hit particularly with my gluten free colleague.

See you all again tomorrow with some more Passover treats.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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chocolate ricotta cheesecake

chocolate ricotta cheesecake

8 Apr 2019

With Easter eggs on the shelves in the supermarket and chocolate on my mind and some leftover ricotta in the fridge which I didn't want to go to waste, I decided to make a cheesecake. I thought I'd try my hand at making a chocolate cheesecake. 




I think I made a chocolate cheesecake many years ago but with no recipe at hand I turned to the internet for help. I found this recipe online which included ricotta in the filling and went to work adapting it. 



I realised it would be quite easy to make the whole thing gluten free, so I used gluten free flour to make the base. The base was a bit more crumbly than usual but otherwise seemed to turn out okay. To jazz it up a bit I used some dark chocolate coconut shards I found lurking in my fridge.



The filling is softly set and with only a small amount of sugar, barely sweet. If you like your desserts on the sweeter side, you could easily increase the sugar to ½ cup.



Chocolate ricotta cheesecake
Base
75 grams unsalted butter
2 tbs caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
½ cup plain flour (regular or gluten free)
2 tbs cocoa
¼ cup almond meal 
Pinch salt

Filling
175g 70% dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
250g cream cheese, softened
250g ricotta
⅓ cup caster sugar
75ml thickened cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs, separated
1 tbs caster sugar extra
Chocolate curls, to garnish

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C, butter the base and sides of a 20 cm-diameter spring form cake tin. 

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and creamy. Sift the flour with the cocoa into a small bowl and stir through the almond meal and a pinch of salt. Add to the butter mixture and combine until the mixture forms a soft dough. Press the mixture into the base of the tin, bringing it slightly up the sides. Bake 15-20 minutes or until the base is dry, then remove from the oven and cool to room temperature. Once cool, wrap a layer of plastic wrap around the base and sides of the tin followed by 2 layers of foil (this prevents water seeping into the pan while cooking in the water bath).

Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C. Place the chocolate and all the cream in a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water until it has melted or you can do this stage in a microwave oven. Set aside to cool slightly. 

Place the cream cheese, ricotta, caster sugar and vanilla extract in a food processor and process until smooth. Add the eggs yolks, one at a time, until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form then beat in the extra caster sugar. Carefully fold the egg whites into the mixture. Fold through the chocolate until just combined.  

Pour the chocolate mixture over the biscuit base and smooth the top. Place in a roasting pan and pour boiling water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the spring-form pan. Bake in the oven for 1½ hours. The cake will still have a slight wobble. Turn the oven off and leave in the oven for about 1 hour to cool, then remove from the water bath, remove the foil and plastic wrap. Once completely cold, refrigerate overnight.



Serve the cheesecake garnished with some chocolate curls. To make clean cuts, dip a knife into boiling water then wipe dry before cutting a slice. You’ll need to repeat this step between each cut.

I still have one more item to bake but otherwise it's full steam ahead for the annual Passover Week on the blog. See you all again next week for Passover Week 2019.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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orange, semolina and coconut syrup cakes

orange, semolina and coconut syrup cakes

1 Apr 2019

A few weeks ago saw a photo of some little orange cakes on instagram and upon investigation, found they were from Ottolenghi. I did a bit of digging and found a few recipes online for a semolina, coconut and marmalade cake with orange blossom syrup from Jerusalem by Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. I wanted to make smaller cakes so the recipe I came up with was an amalgamation of the original recipe and one by Helen Goh, and with no orange blossom water in the house I topped the cakes with some orange syrup.





As with all Ottolenghi recipe I knew the cakes would be bursting with flavour. As well as semolina, coconut and almond meal the recipe calls for orange marmalade. I checked through my cupboards and located the last bottle of blood orange marmalade from my stash. There is another marmalade based cake recipe coming your way soon, so once blood oranges return to the shops I'll have to make another batch of marmalade.




The recipe is pretty quick to put together so these little cakes were in the oven in no time. Here's the recipe for you which makes one small loaf cake or 4 mini loaf cakes. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.




Orange, semolina and coconut syrup cakes – adapted from this Helen Goh recipe

Ingredients
90g fine semolina
35g self-raising flour
55g caster sugar
35g desiccated coconut
1 tbs almond meal
½ tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
80 g marmalade, plus extra ¼ cup for glazing
2 eggs
125 ml freshly squeezed orange juice
⅓ cup sunflower or canola oil
1 orange, zested

Syrup
1 tbs water
2 tbs caster sugar
75 mls orange juice

Cake Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan-forced). Grease, flour and line the bases of 4 mini loaf tins.

Place semolina, flour, sugar, coconut, almond meal, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Whisk lightly to combine.

If your marmalade is chunky, then blitz it with a stick blender. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, orange juice, oil, marmalade and zest together, then pour into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Spoon the mixture into the 4 tins so they are just over three-quarters up the sides. Place into preheated oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

While the cakes are cooking, make the syrup by placing the water and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to the boil and stir until sugar dissolves. Add the orange juice and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 minute, remove from heat.

When the cakes are cooked, remove from the oven and spoon the warm syrup over the top while still in their moulds. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then use a small spatula to ease the cakes out of the moulds and onto a serving plate.

Heat the extra marmalade in a small saucepan with a tablespoon of water until warm and runny, then use a pastry brush to brush the tops of the cakes lightly. Serve as they are with a nice cup of tea or with a dollop of cream.



April has arrived which means Easter isn't too far away. This year Passover coincides with Easter, starting on Good Friday. For the past few weeks I've been chained to the kitchen baking for Passover Week, which will start Monday April 15. So far I've baked 4 items with just one left to bake. As I've been baking for the blog as well plus doing some work for Everten, it's been a busy time. I'll be glad to have a bit of a break from washing up all those dishes.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jilliam

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