smitten kitchen » Passover

raspberry coconut macaroons

deb — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:20:53 +0000

Every year around this time, behind the scenes, I go through my annual Macaroon Marathon, in which I decimate bags and bags of coconut in an effort to find a variation on the lowly macaroon worth noting, publicly. As evidenced by the fact that my archives are virtually coconut macaroon-free, I hadn’t thus far succeeded. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Two years ago, insistent on making something my coconut-loathing but chocolate-adoring husband would find palatable, I made multiple attempts at chocolate-coconut macaroons. They were… brown. And tangly. And rarely chocolaty enough. I don’t remember them fondly. Last year’s experiments centered on whatever appallingly bad home economics had led me to having three (3!) bags of unsweetened coconut in my pantry, and my determination that they would leave my kitchen in cookie format. They were… okay. I am sure more skilled macaroon makers than I make excellent macaroons from unsweetened coconut, but I found them consistently more dry and scratchy than those that began with sweetened coconut. This week’s coconut macaroon trials were the most obsessive yet, with versions rolled in unsweetened coconut chips (gorgeous, but man, are those chips unpleasant to chew), chopped almonds (tasty, but hardly noteworthy), thumbprinted with the intention of filling the indentation with jam or chocolate down the road but I lost interest before I did (a sure sign that they were a snooze) and even flattened, with designs on a sandwich cookie. Were it not for the one in which I’d actually pressed a whole raspberry inside a sealed ball of coconut macaroon, I wouldn’t be here discussing macaroons today because although it was fussy and odd to construct, the flavor smacked unmistakeably of cookie destiny: coconut and raspberries were meant to be together.

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heavenly chocolate cake roll

deb — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:10:47 +0000

This is one of my family’s three cakes. The first one, a sour cream cinnamon chocolate chip coffee cake, came from my grandmother and her sisters, and my husband occasionally (but very quietly) threatens to skip family events if nobody is planning to make it. Nobody knows the origin of the second cake, my mom’s apple cake, but if you’ve gone to a housewarming party, well, ever and not brought it, well, I think you should have. And this is the third one. We make it on Passover but frankly, there’s nothing especially Passover-ish about it, aside from the absence of flour. There’s no ground matzo, theme of exodous or anything particularly religious about the way it is put together. In fact, while we’re being honest and stuff, there’s something particularly unholy about the way it’s put together in that growing up I used to call it the “sh*t” cake in honor of the word that kept slipping from my mother’s mouth as she tried to roll it without it cracking. It always cracked. I’m surprised my mother hasn’t killed me yet for sharing her yearly spasm of colorful language on my internet website, but I disappear after this post, well, you know…

I attempted to sidestep the expletives a few years ago and shared a doubled version with you that was stacked four high, a layer cake of the finest proportions. I included directions for making it as a roll cake — i.e. like a Yule log, or a Yodel, or a Ho-Ho… — but it seemed wrong not to have a post entirely devoted to the way we actually make it at home, and so I decided I would update the rolled recipe this year. Seeing photos of the process helps, I reasoned.

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blackberry and coconut macaroon tart

deb — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 02:36:15 +0000

For the last few weeks, I’ve been going nuts as it feels like every single person I know that has a food blog, has read a food blog, is a fan of food blogs or eats food itself has been gushing over Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks new book, Super Natural Everyday. But not me! Because although I pre-ordered mine in early March, it didn’t arrive for what felt like an eternity. Every morning, me and my tiny partner in crime would take the elevator (always his favorite part of the day) down to the basement, where unclaimed packages often linger by the Super’s apartment and came back empty handed. Then we would sigh, ~~get to work~~ load up Twitter on my laptop and read that another two friends were gushing over a book I was being cruelly deprived of and shake our tiny fists at the Amazon Gods and cry, “Why must you make us wait?!”

Neither of us are very good at waiting, you see. Nevertheless, one fine day last week a box finally arrived and after careful toddler investigation of the package (Can I stand on it? Can I lift it? What will it taste like if I lick it? Can I jump off the 2-inch box and applaud myself when I land on my feet?) I was given permission to open it, take another magical elevator ride to the basement to drop off the box with the recycling and then finally his dad returned home and I was granted an entire bath and bedtime ritual to curl up with Heidi’s newest book.

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tangy spiced brisket

deb — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:32:18 +0000

So this year? It’s been fulla brisket. It started at New Years, with the Southwestern Pulled Brisket that made me a brisket person. And also a slow-cooker person. But mostly a brisket in the slow-cooker person because together, magic happens.

Sidebar: Last month, Alex and I were eating leftover brisket for dinner, or trying to, but these gigantic eyes, staring down our forks as went from plate to mouth and back again were making it difficult.

Alex: Jacob, this isn’t for you. You need teeth to eat brisket.
Deb: AHEM.
Alex: But not your mother’s!

[P.S. Jacob has decided that spelt/oat/barley cereal is an excellent stand-in, but I think it's just because he doesn't know better.]

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almond macaroon torte with chocolate frosting

deb — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:15:41 +0000

And on Saturday, we returned from our week at sea, our week of no work, of sunshine and someone else making dinner and lo, what a bummer. But we had a great time, from stunning views as we sailed out of New York Harbor on a freak 75 degree day in March:

On an epically proportioned boat

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hazelnut chocolate thumbprint cookies

deb — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:52:30 +0000

I made us some cookies.

It started as a quest for a Passover dessert that could be made in advance, if, say, you were the type of person who may or may not have (I admit nothing) invited eight people over for a Passover seder 48 hours after returning from a week-long sojourn on the open sea and wanted to get a head start on cooking.

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chocolate soufflé cupcakes with mint cream

deb — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:03:45 +0000

I’m clearly some sort of grinch, because when I think of flourless chocolate cakes I imagine giant discs of truffle so dense and overly rich that even a sliver of somehow feels excessive, the kind of throwaway dessert restaurants bust out when they’ve got no better ideas. “Add a couple out-of-season, eerily red raspberries and a tuft of whipped cream from a can and it will, without fail, sell,” I imagine sinister managers instructing kitchen staff. Like I said, I’m a total pill.

However, when the same flourless chocolate cake is treated like a soufflé — eggs separated, yolks beaten until ribbony and whites whipped until weightless, then gently folded in — and then placed anywhere in my proximity, all bets are off. Because what it does is magical; what was once weighted is lifted off the plate. The top puffs and shatters a little, like a meringue, a meringue with butter. It manages to be both the lightest, barely-there wisp of cake and the most unabashedly rich chocolate fix. Yes, at once.

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chocolate caramel crack(ers)

deb — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:34:24 +0000

Yes, crack. As in "made with crackers", as in "crackly like toffee" but also in reference to the addictive nature of this stuff. I may make what seems like an elaborate cake a week these days, I might bake my own icebox wafers and fill and frost my cupcakes but these things right here? They're the thing everyone asks for by name, and they take almost no time to make.

Thus, despite that fact that this recipe is incredibly easy to find elsewhere on the web, it only seems right to give it a home here as well. Because if there was one person out there that hasn't made it yet that makes it after reading this, my work here will be done.

You start with a foil and parchment-lined baking sheet, a fantastic thing if you, like me, hate doing dishes. (And seriously, if you don't hate doing dishes, who are you? And would you like to come over?) You lay out the cracker of your choice -- for this week's festivities, we used matzo but, trust me, if you try it with Saltine crackers, it just might blow your mind -- in a single sheet, make a quick brown sugar caramel and bake it onto the crackers for a few minutes. Hot from the oven, you drop chocolate chips on top and when they've softened a minute later, spread them into a thin layer. Sprinkling it with sea salt or toasted, chopped nuts is optional, all that matters is that you share with me.

Oh, and this can be our little secret, but you might consider not putting all of the crack(ers) out when your friends and family come over. Because it might just disappear before you get any, and then you'll wake up the next morning, well, fiending and regretful that you didn't get any, with no choice but to make some more. Don't say these didn't come with a warning label.

One year ago: Lemon Yogurt Anything Cake

Two years ago: Potato Rosemary Bread

chewy amaretti cookies

deb — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:35:44 +0000

We're starting the long and brutal process of packing up our apartment, brutal because as I am sure you know, the longer you live somewhere, the more uh, "stuff" you accumulate and forget about. We've lived here over four years, the longest I've lived anywhere besides my parents house, which means that weeding through our belongings is part "so that's where my Tonic CD went!" (he swears he was joking) and part "you had a recipe binder?"

Oh right, I did. Remember those dark days before the internet, when curious cooks actually had to clip recipes from newspapers and magazines, and keeping those clippings organized in some sort of book or box? Nope, me neither. Going through this binder is fascinating for me as I see what kind of recipe hopes I'd had ten years ago -- a surprising amount I've actually gotten to. And of course there are things that I completely forgot about, like almond cookies that are made with only three ingredients (okay, four, I added salt).

Seeing as my family is a bunch of marzipan junkies, the fact that one of the ingredients is almond paste demanded that I test these, pronto. Plus, lacking flour, they should be perfect for Passover (or they will be until someone in the comments tells me that there's an ingredient that is not Kosher for Passover and yes, this is pretty much the system I use to check on these things) and gluten-free and seriously, might these cookies save the world, too? (Nope, sorry, got that covered.)

But I'll let you decide.

Passover, previously: 17 Flourless Dessert Ideas + Chocolate Walnut Cookies, Almond Cake with Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote and Matzo Ball Soup

One year ago: Shaker Lemon Pie

almond cake with strawberry-rhubarb compote

deb — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:27:14 +0000

Remember those 17 flourless/Passover-friendly desserts? Did you wonder why one would make a list that numbered, say, 17 and not some easily identifiable round number such as 20? I mean, once you’ve gotten to 17, are those last three so difficult, so clearly going to push a blogger over the edge that it simply cannot be done? No, you don’t think about this? Well, lucky you.

But the list was indeed 20 to begin with, but I nixed* three because although they had very little flour in them and the odds were that it could be replaced with matzo meal with little melodrama, I didn’t want to wing it and accidentally ruin every one of your seders with my misplaced confidence. (So much for saving us all some melodrama.) Yet I’ve been staring down the Gâteau aux Amandes with Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon cookbook for months now–a fairly simple cake with what I hoped would be a very intense almond flavor.

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