Making Kosher (dairy!) Croissants – A baking dream come true

Most of the baking I do is pareve, and usually, I don’t mind.  But sometimes, I come across a baking or bread idea that absolutely must use dairy.  Must must must.  No substitutions. 

Naomi Rivka is taking a baking course right now and she bakes a lot of dairy.  She’ll bring home the recipe and excitedly ask, “Can we make this for Shabbos?”  And I look at the kilo of butter or whatever in the ingredients and say, “Not this week, we’re having fleishiks…”  She keeps saying we can use margarine instead, and my standard line for this is:

“Margarine is NOT pareve butter.”

I think you’ll agree.  Margarine can be USEFUL in kosher baking, but it most definitely isn’t butter.  And when what you want is the flavour of butter – there’s nothing like it in the world – then what you need to start with is… butter.

Like croissants.  I read about making croissants years and years ago.  You take a super-thin layer of butter, sandwich it between super-thin layers of dough, and then fold and fold and fold until you have about a million layers of dough-butter-dough-butter-dough (you need dough on the outsides or you just end up with a buttery, sticky glob).

Baking croissants not only takes genuine DAIRY, it also takes a second ingredient I don’t usually have:  PATIENCE.

So you can see why I let it slide for like 20 years, right?  But today, falling as it does during the mysterious period between Purim and Pesach when people are Thinking About Bread Products, I decided to go for it at last.

I didn’t use a recipe, video, article, cookbook… anything.  Just made a quick eggless, sugarless, oil-less dough, rolled out a block of butter, and before I could lose my nerve, combined them into a thousand layers of dairy-baking goodness.

I may have been in some kind of butter-induced trance, because I didn’t even take any pictures until I had gotten well into the process.  I had already rolled the “sandwich” out and cut it twice, I think, stacking up the layers, before I thought to immortalize my creation:

Looks sort of like a butter sandwich.

Essentially, from this point, I rolled the layers out thin (between parchment), then cut it in 3 and stacked up the thirds.  You can fold it, but I didn’t.  As per my usual, I wasn’t too careful about what shape things turned out in:

Pretty ugly, right?  You can fix anything with a rolling pin!  Also, it all looks disgusting mushed up together in your stomach anyway, so why even bother, amIright…?

Here’s the next “sandwich.”  You can

We be (Gulab) Jamun… an out-of-the-ordinary dairy dessert for Shavuos / Shavuot

When I first found out that Judaism had a holiday specifically for celebrating dairy foods, my first thought wasn't cheesecake.  My first thought was... gulab jamun.

What the heck are gulab jamun???

If you love Indian food as much as I do, you probably already know.

I grew up eating a lot of Indian food, and once I started keeping kosher, I missed it most of all.  More than Chinese, Thai, or KFC put together. (Maybe not more than real dim sum!)

When I was a toddler, my father flew to India with an Indian friend and had the time of his life.  He came back with a pair of lovely white linen "day pyjamas" that he'd save for special occasions, a love of delicate nose piercings and an insatiable appetite for Indian food.

(For some weird reason, my father hated ear piercings for girls but told me as I grew up that it would be just fine if I got my nose pierced.  And indeed, he didn't flinch when I eventually got one.)

Ah, but Indian food.  Fortunately, that was one appetite which he shared generously with us (except his love of okra).

Since moving to Israel, I've been on a quest for good Indian food here, which has not really gone well.  There was a place in Jerusalem for a while, but apparently it is no longer under hashgacha.  The food wasn't THAT great anyway, at least, not compared to the Coxwell & Gerard corridor I used to haunt in Toronto before I started keeping kosher.

Keep it cool all summer long with freezer pop molds under $10

Do you have a problem with ice cubes?

Come on, hands up.  I know I do. 

Working in one of the World’s Tiniest Kitchens, I appreciate any solution that saves space, time, money, and hassle.  And living in Israel, I need – desperately! – to stay cool all summer long. 

Oh, yeah, and if I can spend less than ten bucks, all the better.

Last summer, I bought these silicone freezer pop molds for my husband.  Back in Toronto, he had a brand of storebought freezable juice pops that were 100% juice that he loved as a refreshing summertime treat.  Here, everything is made with a ton of sugar, so I thought he could use these to make his own.

Aren’t they pretty?

(If you click the pics, you’ll be taken to the best-rated freezer pop molds I could find on Amazon – I bought mine locally.)

Weirdly, and to my great sadness, my husband didn’t take to them.  So they’ve mostly sat empty and unused for the last year.  But when the weather here started heating up last month, I had a flash of realization:  ICE!

Ice, in cube form, is a problem for us for a few reasons:

Meatless Eggy Muffins – quick cure for “hangry” (hungry + angry) mornings

    

How hangry do you and your kids get in the morning?  (Or afternoon, depending on how late you've slept in and/or procrastinated.)

Around here, the answer is... VERY.

These quick, easy, eggy muffins are exactly what you need:  the cure for Hangry.  Shh… don’t tell anybody: they’re basically little mini-quiches, just without a crust.

These are sometimes called "scrambled egg muffins."  But on most sites, you'll find them chock-full of some type of meat that just won't work in a kosher kitchen.  Pork, ham and bacon are all super-popular at breakfast time, apparently.

Even if you could use some kosher kind of meat, you'd miss out on all the cheesy goodness of these delighful, bite-sized breakfast treats.  So why bother?  Just toss in lots of veggies and you'll never miss the bacon, I promise.

Make your life super-easy and prepare these in reusable silicone muffin cups. 

I didn’t used to like the idea of these, but after a few times of using them for candy and other baked things, I’m sold.  Plus, they’re colourful, cute, and keep your hands from getting greasy.  (They’re sometimes a little tricky to wash after baking things with flour, like muffins, because of all the creases.)

Granola greetings: a perfect way to start the day (dairy)

It’s sort of like alchemy, really… you take oats, which is essentially horse food, and you turn it into pure, hearty breakfast yumminess.

If you’re thinking of starting to make your own granola, this is one of those “old favourite” recipes you’ll want to keep handy.

This picture here of the ingredients highlights the truly “no-frills” alchemy of this recipe:  crafting a premium product out of all these yellow-label groceries.  (the brown sugar and a couple of other things that aren’t packed in yellow were left out of the photo)

I’ve made this granola many, many times now.  I’m still searching for a source of milk powder (skim or otherwise) in Israel, because now I miss it… a lot.  Plus, storebought granola is pretty expensive here, while oats are relatively cheap.

I was surprised the first few times that I liked it so much; I’m not a huge granola fan.  Before I made this, I tried the Artisan Bread in Five Granola (the granola is meant to be used to make yummy Granola Bread!), but to be honest, I wasn’t that inspired by it.  This one DID inspire me.

What’s the difference?

In this recipe, it’s the milk powder that MAKES the granola.  It makes the granola sort of clump together the same way Quaker Harvest Crunch does – delicious clusters of pure homemade crunchy deliciousness.  If you don’t have powdered milk or don’t want to make a dairy granola – ie, for baking – then stick with the ABin5 recipe; it’s very good.  Otherwise, try this one – it’s GREAT!

I recommend that you not double the recipe.  The single one makes a decent quantity, and it doesn’t keep long.  Plus, my family gets sick of eating the same thing surprisingly quickly.  This is so fast to throw together that you can always whip up more if it vanishes.  (If you have a big family, I suppose you could double it, but keep in mind that you’ll need to spread it out flat to bake properly in the oven.)

This recipe is adapted from The Tightwad Gazette.

What you need:

The Wet Stuff:

• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup honey

Recipe: Old cake, new cake… on Shavuos, we have two cakes!

And no, they’re not both cheesecakes… although one is; a special all-Israeli cheesecake for which you can find the recipe a bit further down.  And okay, both are dairy-based; sorry to anyone who can’t have dairy at this very milky time of year…

(In fact, since I started to write this, my husband decided to make a classic North American lemony cheesecake, deapite my predictions of doom that it wouldn’t work with Israeli cheese… so we may end up with three cakes.)

With all of my dooming and glooming about baking in Israel, I was happy to receive a recipe from my ulpan teacher on Sunday night which she guaranteed would work with Israeli ingredients – given that she’s never baked it anywhere else.  I figure as an old dog making aliyah, it’s time for a new trick… with cheesecake.

Except, except, except… her cheesecake doesn’t have a crust.  Heresy!  I couldn’t bake a crustless cheesecake.  Honestly, I was about to pour it into the pan (#26, according to her instructions, which took some measuring, because I’d never heard of this size before), when I broke down and decided I simply couldn’t do it.

Hence, a last-minute, Lotus biscuit crust.  If you have never had Lotus / Biscoff / Speculoos biscuits before, you must.  I was already dreaming of them before we got here, having read on several baking sites that they are simply delicious.  Indeed, I found a copycat recipe a number of years ago and tried to recreate them, but really, they were nothing like the real thing. 

(Trust me, this is a cookie people love so much that they made it into a spread.  So if you’re eating a biscuit that isn’t a Lotus, you can “convert” it with a dab of spread!)

Anyway, we had a bunch here, but the catch is that they’re individually wrapped… which meant individually unwrapping about four dozen of the things to make a crust in my #26 pan.

Crumble, crumble, crumble…

…Crust!

 

As you can see in the picture above, the cake was already completely mixed.  Like I said, I was about to pour it into the naked tinfoil pan, but simply couldn’t do it.  So the cheese part waited while the crust baked.

… Baked crust!

At last… time to pour the cheesecake stuff in.  Waah!  Even without a crust, this would barely have fit in the pan.  Maybe I did something wrong…?  But I sampled a bit to make sure it was yummy before slipping it into the oven, so I think it’s okay.

 

Here’s the recipe. 

Lucky for you, I have transcribed it below so you can try it out yourself without needing to squint through my Hebrew handwriting.

But what about the second cake? 

It wouldn’t be Shavuos without an old cake, a familiar family friend.  And the most familiar of all is my Grama’s Neapolitan Cake.  Which sounds all hoity-toity, unless you think of it (as I do) as “pudding-cookie cake.”  Really – it’s just pudding and cookies; it really is that simple.

STEP 1:  Take four HUGE cookies:

STEP 2:  Slop some pudding onto them… and sprinkle with toasty almonds so it doesn’t look like so much something a child made:

Wah-la!

For the full Grama’s Neapolitan Cake recipe, click here.

And for the “new” cheesecake recipe from my ulpan teacher Galya… well, read on.

ALL-ISRAELI CHEESY CHEESECAKE FROM MY ULPAN TEACHER GALYA

(if you try to make this outside of Israel, your results may vary)

Cheesecake Ingredients:

• 750g gevina levana / white cheese (I used 2 tubs, 1 500g and 1 250g)
• 6 large eggs, separated
• 200ml (1 regular tub) 15% shamenet chamutza / sour shamenet = roughly like sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar, divided
• 4 tbsp korenflor / cornflour = corn starch (not corn meal!)
• 3 tbsp instant vanilla pudding mix (the Hebrew term for this: “eenstant pooooodeeeeeng vaneeeel”)
• 1 packet vanilla sugar OR real vanilla extract (that’s what I used)

How to make it:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
2. Mix well the egg yolks, shamenet, corn flour, pudding mix, gevina levana, vanilla sugar / extract, half cup white sugar
3. Beat egg whites with one cup sugar until they form peaks
4. Gently but thoroughly combine egg whites with other ingredients (which you mixed in Step 2).
5. Place in a greased round #26 pan (= 26 cm)
6. Bake around one hour until golden-brown (I generally bake cheesecake a little less than it feels like you ought to so it doesn’t dry out and crack!)
7. For best results, leave in oven to cool at least 1 hour after baking.
8. Ice with “krem” if desired (see below).

(one HUGE cheesecake, as demonstrated by my husband)

“Krem” (frosting) ingredients:

• 1 small container of sweet whipping cream
• the rest of the vanilla instant pudding from the cheesecake
• 3/4 cup milk

How to make it:

1. Beat all “krem” ingredients together.
2. Spread on cheesecake when cool.

NOTE:  I haven’t made the “krem” yet and can’t vouch for its yumminess!

For more information about Shavuos, please check out:  Shavuos Adventures from Adventures in MamaLand.  The adventures you’ll find there include…

• The (simplified) story of Ruth and Naomi (Book of Ruth, read on Shavuos)
• Sample Shavuos menu
• Easy Shavuos kids’ craft
• Free printable Shavuos book for early readers
• Dvar Torah for a midweek Shavuos

Good Yom Tov / Chag Sameach / Happy Shavooooooo-ot from the holy land!

Want, want, want… (ice cream bread?)

  Hmm… maybe I’ve got time to make this before we go?!?!?!?

• Three ingredients (two if you omit sugar, which sounds like a good plan)!
• Three minutes (not counting thaw time)!
• No kneading!
• (Apparently) not too sweet!

… Holy Oh-Em-Jee, everybody – it’s ICE CREAM BREAD.

1. Ice.
2. Cream.
3. Bread.

Step the First.  You thaw the ice cream.

Step the Second.  You stir in self-rising flour.  Okay, this isn’t exactly ONE ingredient, and I normally consider it an abomination, but I happen to have TWO bags of the stuff here that Ted bought by accident.

Step the Third.  Bake.

Step the Fourth.  Indulge.

The “secret recipe” is more of a ratio than anything else:

1 cup full-fat ice cream : 3/4 cup self-rising flour

Bake at 350° for 25-45 minutes (depending on how big a batch) until toothpick comes out clean.

This version recommends Triple Brownie ice cream, 1 cup : 3/4 cup and bakes for 25-30 minutes.  This version uses Butter Pecan, doubled to have 2 cup : 1 1/2 cup and baked for 45 minutes.

Play with it, let me know which you love best.  And I’ll report back here if I get a chance to try this before I move.

Sorry to fans of this, my most-neglected blog.  Israel is my big project at the moment and I suspect it will be a while before I am free to bake again regularly… :-(

Feel free to follow our adventures at my aliyah blog in the meantime!!!

How it turned out!

Here it is… the Buttermilk-Parmesan Herb Bread from Shavuos!

Shaped and resting …

Risen nicely – thanks to the scorching hot day…

  

Baked and delicious!

With all that milk and cheese, the crust was much softer than I usually like, but the bread makes up for it (yes, there are still leftovers) by being extremely flavourful and tender.  Mmm, indeed!

Mmm….

All-dairy Shavuos means

Buttermilk-Parmesan Herb Bread!!!

(adapted from Artisan Bread in Five, of course!)

The herbs above are golden oregano, sage, thyme and (hard to see) chives. The chives made a huge mess when I tried to purée them in the small chopper. I really should have just chopped them by hand… :-(

Anyway, here’s the basic formula I’m using:

Herbs, above, puréed with a bit of oil

1755g (13 cups) a.p. flour

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast

1 1/2 tablespoons salt

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

2 cups lukewarm water

2 cups buttermilk (subbed 2 cups milk w/2 Tbsp vinegar added, let rest 5 minutes)

1 cup parmesan cheese

Mix, rest, shape, bake.

OMG – TWO special birthday desserts???

Today’s my sister’s big 30th birthday, but we celebrated on Sunday.  In lieu of CAKE (so cliché!), I made two desserts:

Tiramisu (recipe here)

and

Chocolate molten cakes (recipe here)

The tiramisu was perfect – we’ve made it many times before.  She asked if it was “real” tiramisu; apparently, she’s had the “not real” (surreal?  unreal?) kind before.  This is as real as I can get it; there are now several brands of kosher mascarpone available.  That’s the special cheese you need to make the creamy layers.  Kosher lady fingers have been around forever.

As for the molten cakes, they were a bit TOO molten.  The recipe says to keep them in the fridge and then bake them (at 450) for 6 (?) minutes before serving.  I baked them exactly as long as it says to, plus an extra couple of minutes, plus a couple of minutes to firm up in the individual dishes, and they were still soggy.  Soggy but amazingly DELICOUS, like the best, gooiest brownies in the universe!  I just think I’d bake them 12-14 minutes next time to get them a little more firm around the edges so they could stand up on their own on a plate.

So many Jewish food, baking and cooking blogs are all about the pareve, but sometimes, you really NEED a dairy dessert.

Thankfully, Abigail requested my mother’s special “filo pizza,” so there you go; a dairy birthday meal, with a perfect dairy finale.  As for the filo pizza, I don’t really love it.  She makes it at Shavuos, and it’s okay surrounded by a bunch of other stuff.  As a main course, it’s TOO.  If you know what I mean.

Oh – just to push the whole thing over the top, we ALSO served ice cream on the side.  Because we have ice cream at every birthday.  The one time I tried doing something a little different for one of my sisters, she sulked the whole evening, so even if we didn’t exactly NEED ice cream, there it was on the table, for whoever wanted it.

Surprisingly, we are not a family of blimps.  The way I describe us, you’d think we were some sort of butter gluttons.  Anyway, no, that’s just me.