Here is a recipe for honey rose cookies with cardamom. I based the recipe for these floral, spiced cookies on my maple spice cookies, but the change to honey and the addition of roses adds a very different feeling. The cookies also have little specks from the ground roses that add color and pizzazz.
(Photo mine, April 2023)
Roses have been used in Jewish cooking for many centuries, but primarily in the form of rose water, which tends to be quite concentrated. Rose flavors are often associated with Shabbat and Shavuot. Beyond a floral note, rose often complements and cuts the sweetness in many desserts. In this recipe, I used dried edible roses – which you can find easily online, especially because they are often used for tea. Be sure you are using food-grade dried roses.
Honey Rose Cookies with Cardamom
Makes 24-30 cookies
1 stick unsalted butter or butter substitute, softened
½ cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons whole milk (or plant-based milk)
2 cups white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons dried rose petals, crushed (I use a mortar and pestle)
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon table salt
Preheat your oven to 350F/175C. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy, using the method of your choice (electric mixer, hand mixer, or by hand).
Add the honey, vanilla extract, and milk and blend together until combined.
Sift the flour together with the baking powder, crushed rose petals, cardamom, and salt.
Mix the flour mixture into the honey butter mixture until combined. You should have a pliable dough.
With your hands or two spoons, roll balls of dough about 1 ½ inches/2 centimeters in diameter and place on the cookie sheet. Then use your finger to squash each ball into an oval-ish shape. You should get between 24 and 30 cookies.
Bake for 12-13 minutes. The cookies should become golden and expand.
Remove from oven and let sit on the cookie sheet for ten minutes.
Thanks to David Ouziel, Hannah Cook, and Douglas Graebner for conducting User Acceptance Testing on this recipe.
I have been trying to improve my repertoire of vegan, gluten-free desserts for a while now – partly to have more dairy-free and gluten-free desserts in my back pocket, and partly because it seems like a good idea.
A vegan, gluten-free walnut brownie. (Photo mine / March 2023)
Hence these brownies. I based them on an excellent recipe by Arman Liew, but made enough adjustments that I decided to write up my version separately. This recipe is more like a bar, and thus is very different from my cakey Shabbat brownies.
Stock photo brownies that look a lot like my other brownies (Photo Pixabay/CC)
I added walnuts, which I crushed with a rolling pin. The walnuts not only complement the chocolate and temper the sweetness, but also add oil and density to the brownie. You could probably use any tree nut; a nut-free version would probably require some additional tweaks.
Vegan and Gluten-Free Walnut Brownies
Based on a recipe by Arman Liew
Makes 24 brownies
4 tablespoons ground flaxseed
¾ cup water
2 scant cups vegan chocolate chips – semi-sweet or dark chocolate
12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) vegan butter – Earth Balance works well
Preheat the oven to 350F/175C, and line a 9”x13” (23cm x 33cm) pan with parchment paper.
Mix the flaxseed and water and let sit for a few minutes, or until it gels up. Set aside.
Melt the chocolate chips and vegan butter in a large bowl. I usually do 30 second spurts in the microwave on high, mixing in between, until melted. You could use a double boiler if you like.
Add the sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla extract to the chocolate mixture and mix in thoroughly.
Add the flaxseed mixture to the chocolate mixture and mix in thoroughly.
Sift together the gluten-free flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder.
Fold the dry mixture into the chocolate mixture until just combined. The texture should be consistent and no dry spots should be apparent.
Fold in the walnuts until evenly distributed.
Pour the mixture into the pan and use your spatula to spread around evenly. Note that this will be a thick mixture – much thicker than a traditional brownie batter.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top has solidified.
Remove from the oven and let sit in the pan for at least 30 minutes.
Remove the mega-brownie from the pan and slice into squares. I usually measure mine to be about 2 inches on each side.
Keep in a sealed container for up to four days, separating layers of brownie with parchment paper.
Thank you to my colleagues for providing User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.
One of the great things about Romanian food is that there is something for everyone. Luscious corn porridge, mamaliga, with salty curd cheese, hearty soups, elegant salads, spiced meats, and ethereal fruits. Many communities, including Jews, have lived in Romania and influenced its cuisines – and this shows up in Romanian baking. Germanic, broad-shouldered fruit pies, light shortbreads common across the former Ottoman Empire, and swirled fruit-and-nut breads reminiscent of Eastern Europe all stand side by side. Romania is an underrated baker’s paradise.
Irina Georgescu captures this fantastic diversity in her latest book on baked treats, Tava. This dessert-focused book chronicles both traditional Romanian and Balkan recipes like the plăcintă cu mere – and apple and walnut pie – and gogoşi doughnuts, and newer creations like a crepe recipe with a toffee apple and rosemary sauce. Georgescu writes in a relaxed, yet passionate style, and provides a richly illustrated journey through the diverse regions and culinary traditions of her homeland. This book follows Carpathia, an excellent and not dessert-focused compendium of traditional and modern Romanian cooking.
The recipes in the book are fantastic. One of my personal favorites is the apple and caraway seed loaf cake, which is beautifully simple and very delicious – the juice of the grated apple is what moistens the cake, so it feels luscious and light at the same time. I can also vouch for the malai dulce – sweet cornbread – recipe, and the wonderful pinwheel swirl shortbreads, which were fun to make. Something that I deeply appreciate about the recipes is that the sugar content is much reduced compared to other books, so none of the recipes I have tried are either too sweet or cloying at all. I wonder if this is common across Romanian confectionary, or simply attributable to Georgescu’s (obvious) culinary genius. I’m excited to soon try the courgette (zucchini) fritters and the various pies.
Curd cheese dumplings in Tava (photo Irina Georgescu/2022)
Georgescu openly celebrates the Jewish influence – and other influences – on Romanian cuisine. Some of these are in the recipes that many communities share – for example, noodle puddings or doughnuts. She also adds a well-written and very nice discussion of Jewish baking traditions in Romania at the end of the book, followed by a hamantaschen recipe with plum butter that looks absolutely divine. I appreciated also that hamantaschen were in the section on gifts – after all, they are a traditional part of mishloach manot. Along with the Jewish insert – again, appropriately placed – there are also entries on Hungarian-speaking, German-speaking, and Armenian communities in Romania, with wonderful recipes attached.
Georgescu’s hamantaschen with plum butter (photo Irina Georgescu, 2022)
Beyond the celebration and the recipes, Georgescu’s book gives one more gift: an excellent antidote to authenticity discussions in food. Georgescu explicitly focuses on the diverse origins of Romanian food, and resists the urge to mush them into a single narrative – in fact, she rejects authenticity! She states,
“I prefer to say ‘this is how we eat in Romania’ – a kaleidoscope of old, traditional and regional recipes, relevant to who we are now.”
I hope many more authors and cookbook creators take this lesson from this excellent book.
A free-form chocolate babka. Yes, I am aware of what it looks like. (Photo mine, September 2021)
This is my chocolate babka recipe – which I have posted elsewhere, but not as a blog post. I nailed down this recipe during the initial stages of the pandemic, based on my cinnamon babka recipe and Tori Avey’s chocolate filling. It has been one of my dessert standards since then. (To the point that last year, I brought one on a plane to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with my partner’s family. I am nothing if not absolutely ridiculous.)
I talked about the history of babka in a 2019 post. What I have come to appreciate about chocolate babka since then is how it reflects a very Jewish experience: of new foods evolving with encounters with new products in new places. Chocolate babka came about in 20th-century New York, enabled by cheaper chocolate and an enormous amount of creativity in New York’s Jewish bakeries at the time. Now, it is one of those treats that generally pleases a very wide audience. I’ve also come to appreciate the delicious babkas created by other communities – I’m a big fan of the log-like Ukrainian ones.
Cross-section of a (free-form) babka. (Photo mine, May 2020)
I make my babka a little less sweet than many are, and I like to add chopped walnuts to add weight, depth, and nuttiness. You can omit the walnuts if you have an allergy. I also make the babka with butter – though dairy is only partly traditional, it is delicious. The butter also adds to the delicious density of a babka – something that certain people on certain British baking shows do not appreciate, I am told.
You can braid in a loaf, which is what I direct here, but I’ve come to enjoy free-form babkas braided like a challah. I added directions in a note at the bottom. You can also add an egg wash if you are feeling fancy, but I am invariably too lazy.
A baked babka. (Photo mine, May 2020)
Chocolate Babka (with Optional Walnuts)
Makes two medium loaves
1 cup/250mL whole milk
1 package active dry yeast
2/3 cup granulated sugar, divided in half
5 tablespoons salted butter, melted
2 eggs
3 ¾ cups sifted white flour (about 450g)
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 oz/120g dark chocolate chips
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup walnuts, finely ground (optional)
Warm the milk to about 100F/39C – I do it in 15 second spurts in the microwave. The milk should be warm enough to touch with your finger but not feel like it’s burning you.
Add the yeast to the milk, stir in, and let sit for five minutes.
Mix the yeast mixture in a large bowl or stand mixer bowl with the eggs, salted butter, and 1/3 cup of the sugar.
Add the flour, ½ cup at a time, and mix in thoroughly, either with your hands and a spoon or the dough hook on the electric mixer. Once it is in, knead for six to eight minutes on a floured surface, or use the dough hook on the electric mixer for about five minutes. The dough, when ready, should be roughly the texture of your earlobe and should be smooth and bounce back.
Oil a large bowl, put the dough in it, and cover. Let rise for about 1 ½ hours, or until a bit more than double in size.
Meanwhile, you can make the filling. Melt the unsalted butter and the chocolate chips together until smooth. (I use the microwave). Mix in the other 1/3 cup sugar, cocoa powder, and walnuts if using until combined. Set aside.
Preheat your oven to 350F/175C. Grease two loaf pans. Grease – not flour – a large surface and a rolling pin.
Punch the dough down, then split into two parts. Take one part, roll it out to about half an inch/1 centimeter thickness. Spread half of the chocolate filling evenly on it, leaving a 1 inch/2.5 cm perimeter around the edges of the dough.
Pick up one edge and roll tightly into a tube. If you want, you can slice the tube in half before the next step.
Bring the two ends together, and twist into a figure eight-ish shape. Place in the pan.
Repeat with the other half and other pan.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until brown on top and hollowish-sounding when you tap it. Let cool for five minutes in the pan, then until your desired temperature on a rack. Store in a sealed plastic bag for up to a week or so.
For a free-form babka: Bake instead on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Shape the coils however you want – I recommend in this case slicing the tube in half and twisting the two halves together for a visual effect.
Many thanks to the friends, neighbors, and roommates who have helped me develop this recipe over the years: AJ Faust, Zachary Maher, Ying-Ying Chow, Rebecca Fedderwitz, Bo-Young Lee, Joseph Jeffers, Hannah Cook, Douglas Graebner, Melanie Marino, Margaret Curran, Maryam Sabbaghi, Sara Weissman, Gilah Barker, Zach and Hannah Kinger, and of course, my partner David Ouziel.
A slice of the castagnaccio I made with (not vegan) ricotta and honey, and white wine. (Photo David Ouziel, January 2022)
Though I myself still partake in many animal products and a rather abundant amount of gluten, I am trying to learn some more gluten-free, vegan dessert and snack recipes. Some of this has to do with the fact that I now interact in spaces with people with each or both of these dietary needs, and I’m too lazy to make two things. Also, some of this is that this skill is probably useful to develop for potlucks. In my research, I was reminded of a delicious dessert or snack from Italy – castagnaccio, a nut- and herb-studded chestnut flour pudding. This traditional snack has not only a wonderful, chewy but dense texture and earthy, nutty taste – but is also vegan and gluten-free.
Chestnuts have a fairly interesting Jewish history which I have touched on in prior posts, particularly in my recipe for kestaneli kuzu – lamb stewed with chestnuts. In additional research, I came to learn that the Jews of Northern Italy put chestnuts into many delicious things – including a traditional charoset recipe, polentas, and stuffed pastries. Some of the use of chestnuts had to do with poverty – before potatoes and corn arrived in the New World, chestnuts were a key source of starch for many European peasants. Wealthy people ate chestnuts too, often cooked with more expensive things like meat or sugar. I have a suspicion that dishes like castagnaccio crossed some boundaries – because while the chestnuts themselves were accessible, grinding chestnuts into flour required significant labor. It is a modern miracle that I can simply order chestnut flour online that has already been ground for me. I imagine castagnaccio graced more well-off tables more frequently – especially if there was someone else doing the grinding or cooking.
Back to today – most of the recipes called for raisins. My partner despises raisins, which is one of the traditional cornerstone ingredients in castagnaccio. I solicited advice from my Facebook friends on how to substitute the raisins – a key source of sweetness – without losing too much in taste. (Thank you!) I landed on a substitute with a splash of wine and some added sugar – which many castagnaccio recipes traditionally omit.I served the castagnaccio along with some ricotta and honey for added moisture – though you can obviously substitute similar vegan things or omit these. The texture is very difficult to describe but quite lovely – with a certain firm chewiness, and the nuts add a wonderful taste and aroma. I will definitely make this again.
Ricotta and honey for serving (optional, and you can use vegan equivalents)
Preheat the oven to 375F/190C. Grease a 9-inch/23cm cake pan with olive oil.
Sift the chestnut flour into a mixing bowl, then whisk in the water, wine, and cane sugar. This mixing should create a batter.
Pour the batter into the greased pan.
Sprinkle the pine nuts, walnuts, and rosemary evenly over the surface of the batter.
Put the pan in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the batter has firmed up and the cake begins to pull away from the edges of the pan.
Remove from the oven and let cool. The castagnaccio will shrink slightly – that is okay!
Transfer to a plate and cut into slices. Serve with ricotta and honey on the side. Keep any leftover castagnaccio covered at room temperature for up to three days.
Chocolate red wine cake with homemade ice cream. (Photo mine, April 2020)
It’s hard to feel like you have “made it” during a global pandemic and a world-historical crisis. The crushing disappointment of not being able to see one’s loved ones, of goals gone and dreams deferred, and of plans spilled out like milk is truly taxing. And even for me – I have things pretty good, compared to most – it can be rough, with all the uncertainty and being far from my partner and my mother. So I have turned to the familiar comfort of cooking, and to a dessert that is at once very assimilated and very Jewish: chocolate cake. When I eat my cake, I – like many other Jews since the 1880’s – can feel like, for a moment, that I have “made it.”
A Jewish merchant woman’s advertisement for chocolate and other goods in 18th-century Rhode Island. (Document found in Library of Congress archive)
Chocolate has a long history in Jewish cooking. Of course, cacao and the chocolate it comes from originated in what is now Mexico, and only reached Europe after the Spanish conquest. Despite the Inquisition, Sephardi Jews were involved in the chocolate trade from almost its beginning in Europe, and well-off Jews in the Netherlands were already making and consuming chocolate in the 17th century, and in Italy and the Americas in the 18th. New developments in cocoa processing and production gave us eating chocolate and cocoa powder for baking in the 19th century; Jewish people in Europe and the Americas were involved in early manufacture of both. By the late 19th century, chocolate was still a luxury good, but widespread across Europe, especially in cities; Jewish merchant families and better-off Jewish communities began to incorporate chocolate into baked goods. As a result, the consumption of chocolate quickly became a status symbol. Incorporating a bit of chocolate, even as a paltry glaze or with store-bought candy was a sign of the times and living large. Contemporary recipe books from the United States, Germany, and Lithuania all contain recipes with chocolate in holiday food sections.
This Yiddish-language cookbook was distributed by Crisco to sell their products to Jewish communities – and like many others of its time, it included chocolate cake. (Image from Yiddish Book Center/CC)
One way that chocolate became a status symbol was through cake. Home baking became far more common in the 19th century, with new types of ovens coming into homes and a more ready availability of sugar, dairy, and sources of fat. Middle-class families often served – withthe assistance of domestic labor – cake as a way of being “civilized” or showing off their success. Jews were no exception – this was also a time of fervent assimilation into certain norms of decorum and class across Europe and North America. (Reminder: assimilation is not necessarily a bad thing.) The earliest Jewish-authored cookbooks I found in online archives to contain chocolate cake recipes are German-language examples from the 1880’s; English-language examples follow a decade later. By the early 20th century, respectable Jewish housewives on both sides of the Atlantic, Ashkenazi and Sephardi alike, were expected to make – or direct a domestic worker to make – chocolate cakes. In a short time, such cakes became a keyword for luxury and comfort, and began to be served on Sabbath tables and at major events. Since then, different communities have developed different chocolate cakes. Yiddish-speaking bakers in interwar New York often baked certain loaves from Yiddish-language cookbooks, just as well-off Salonican and Cairene Jews educated in French-language schools made decadent cakes in their homes. Italian Jews had chocolate cake recipes, too, for special occasions. By the 1950’s, most Jewish cookbooks contained at least one chocolate cake recipe – and chocolate had found its way into traditional cakes that originally did not have chocolate, like marble cake and sour cream cake. A chocolate cake was not only a food of deliciousness, but a potent symbol of success and plenty for many. I think we all know people for whom that still rings true today.
Chocolate red wine cake cooling (photo mine, April 2020)
This assimilation of delicious cake shows how a food can become Jewish. A food is introduced, then tried because it means something in wider society, and because it looks delicious. (In this case, is delicious.) Other Jewish folks start making it, and soon, the food has a meaning in Jewish communities – even if it is not “authentic” per se, or shows off how well assimilated someone is. A few years later – well within the lifetime of an adopter – the food then becomes common across some spectrum of the Jewish world. Chocolate cake shows how creative people can be – and how even ordinary, Gentile foods can be infused with meaning in Jewish communities. You can see a similar process with coffee cakes, lamb stews with chestnuts, and potato salads. Even p’tchaprobably started as an imitation of a nobleman’s dish introduced by the Tatars to Central Europe.
Chocolate babkas – another new application of chocolate in the 19th century (Photo Christine Garofalo/CC)
Chocolate cake is a mechayeh– something that gives life – in this time. It is sweet, and tasty, and those are sources of solace enough. But I also think that we can eat it as a sense of worth and achievement: that whatever we are, we are enough, and that we have done a lot – each in our own way. It is also a reminder of the creativity and good taste of our grandparents and great-grandparents in the Jewish world – and that having a community that can find joy in such simple pleasures is having “made it” indeed. You have decades of chocolate cake being used for solace and celebration in the Jewish world to back you up. Stay safe, and eat some cake.
And now, a cake.
I based this recipe on one by Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen, but simplified it to not require a mixer – and to add chocolate from chips as well as cocoa powder. I also added some things from a fluffier recipe at TasteMade. The red wine adds a lovely warmth. Going for simplicity, I left it unadorned and cut the sugar slightly. I like these straightforward, comforting cakes as the sign that I made it. Serve it with whatever you want though – I’ve had mine with homemade ice cream, and a simple sour cream glaze would work well too, as would whipped cream or a lovely dusting of powdered sugar. However you eat it, I hope you feel like you have “made it.”
Chocolate Red Wine Cake
Adjusted from recipes by Deb Perelman and Tastemade
Serves 8-10
6 ounces/170g salted butter (about ¾ of a stick)
⅓ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
⅔ cup white sugar
¾ cup red wine
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 ⅛ cups all-purpose flour
⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
Oil or butter to grease the pan
Preheat your oven to 325F/165C. Line the bottom of a round 8” or 9”/20-23cm cake pan with parchment paper, then grease with butter or a non-stick spray.
In the microwave or a bain-marie, melt the butter and chocolate chips together. (I use the microwave – cut the butter up, mix with the chocolate chips, and microwave for one minute on high in a microwave-safe bowl, then stir together.)
In a large mixing bowl, whisk the butter and chocolate mixture with the sugar until thoroughly combined.
Add the red wine. Mix in thoroughly, with the whisk.
Add the eggs. Mix in thoroughly, with the whisk.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and cinnamon together. (You do not have to do this but it distributes the cocoa powder more evenly.)
Fold the flour mixture into the mixing bowl with the wet ingredients with a wooden spoon or a mixer. You can also whisk them together, but make sure that everything gets incorporated properly.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and spread evenly.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven, and then flip onto a cake rack after cooling in the pan for 20 minutes. Let cool for about 30 minutes, at least, before serving. Serve with whipped cream, ice cream, powdered sugar, or on its own.
Thank you to my housemate AJ Faust for conducting User Acceptance Testing on this recipe.
This recipe was updated in March 2021 based on additional experimentation.
Here is a simple, straightforward cookie recipe. This type of rolled sugar cookie shows up often in American Jewish community cookbooks from the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s. Though such recipes are often dismissed as a sign of “assimilation,” I think they offer a lot of knowledge about exactly how Jewish folks, and mostly the women who were doing most of the cooking, were still trying to maintain community ties and get people to communal events in this new framework. Besides, there is no shame in enjoying a cookie.
I did not see a cookie of this specific flavor in the books, but I have made a variant of these a few times in the past months, and was quite happy with the result. You can make a dairy-free/pareve version by using oil and one small egg instead of the milk, or use a plant-based milk and oil for a vegan cookie.
½ cup (3.5oz/100g) granulated cane sugar + 2-3 tbsp for rolling
⅔ cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp whole milk
2 cups (8.5oz/240g) white flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground allspice
½ tsp ground cloves
Preheat your oven to 350F/175C. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until combined. You can use a pastry knife or an electric hand mixer. Here is a guide for how you can do that with a wooden spoon if you have neither.
Add the maple syrup, vanilla extract, and whole milk, and mix until combined.
In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and spices together.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and work together with the pastry knife, spoon, or hand mixer until combined. You should have a sticky but pliant dough.
Pour the 2-3 tbsp of sugar for rolling onto a plate and spread it evenly.
Take a piece of dough and roll it into a 1 inch/2.5cm ball. Then, roll it briefly in the sugar until covered. Place it on the parchment paper. Repeat until you use the dough – spread the dough balls about 2 inches/5 cm apart.
Use a fork to lightly “squash” each of the balls.
Bake for 10-13 minutes in the oven, or until the cookies are brown but not burned on the bottom, and the cookies are solid but still soft.
Remove from the heat and let cool for 15-20 minutes before serving. Store any remaining cookies in an airtight container or bag for up to four days.
Thank you to my classmates, colleagues, housemates, and boyfriend for trying several iterations of this recipe.
As a busy graduate student, I have largely been sticking to these simpler recipes during my semesters. Sometimes, these are very obviously Jewish, but this time, I am providing a brownie recipe. I call these Shabbat brownies, because they taste great a day or two later – making them suited for baking for a Shabbat lunch! Make them on Thursday night or Friday afternoon for a tasty end to the meal. (Have one or three as a snack in the meantime.)
While the origin of brownies was likely in church communities in central Maine, they became quite popular among American Jews – just like everyone else in North America. There is a certain type of very fudgy brownie that seems to be popular among synagogues across North America. While they are good, I tend to prefer a cakey brownie – one that relies heavily on eggs.
This stock photo’s brownies look oddly similar to mine, if a tad denser. The photographer is more talented than I, hence… (Photo Pixabay/CC)
Hence this recipe. I used to have a different recipe, but here is my updated version. Thank you to my boyfriend, housemates, colleagues, and classmates for testing the various iterations.
Shabbat Brownies
Makes 24 brownies
2 sticks (1 cup) butter + more for greasing
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup granulated white sugar
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 large eggs, room temperature
1 ½ cups sifted white flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
Grease a 9”x13”/23cmx33cm (or similarly sized pan) with butter. Line the pan with parchment paper, then grease the parchment paper again with butter.
Melt the butter and chocolate chips together until smooth. You could do this in a bain-marie, but I just do it in the microwave: put the chips in a deep, microwave safe bowl, add the butter in chunks, microwave on high for a minute, then stir together. Put the melted chocolate-butter mixture in a large mixing bowl.
Add the sugar and cocoa powder and whisk together until thoroughly combined.
Add the milk and vanilla extract, and whisk together until thoroughly combined.
Crack the eggs into the bowl, and then whisk together until thoroughly combined and the mixture is smooth.
Add the flour, baking powder, and sugar. Whisk together until the batter is thoroughly combined and is a smooth, thick consistency. Make sure all the flour is thoroughly mixed in!
Pour the batter into the pan. Bake for 30-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean or with only a few crumbs. Let cool before cutting.
Store in an airtight container for up to four days.
No story here, just a baked good. This is a recipe for a “lazy” rendition of scones, which are usually made with cold butter. Melting the butter or using oil does change the texture slightly by making them a bit less flaky, but they are so much easier to make. And they are still delicious.
Lazy Scones
Makes ten scones
2 cups white flour, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup mix-ins (chopped candied fruit, chocolate chips, raisins, dried fruit, chopped berries, etc. If using dried fruit, soak in hot water for 15 minutes before using)
6 tablespoons salted butter, melted or 6 tablespoons vegetable oil plus ½ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
¾ cup full-fat yoghurt
1/3 cup whole milk
Preheat your oven to 400C/200F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour and baking soda until combined. Add the mix-ins and mix thoroughly until the additions are evenly distributed through the flour. Set aside.
In a second bowl, mix together the butter/oil and sugar until thoroughly combined. Then, add the egg, yogurt, and milk and mix until fully combined.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Using a large spoon or paddle, mix together until you have a thoroughly combined, wet, thick dough.
Using two spoons, form and place heaps of dough onto the parchment paper. They will not be “perfect” in shape, but that is the point. These are lazy.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the top is beginning to brown and the bottom is fully golden brown. Remove from oven. Let cool for 15 minutes before removing from tray.
Thank you to my colleagues at the University of Maryland for participating in iterative User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.
This is a fall-themed cake using common pantry ingredients. The cake is in some ways my own creation, but was inspired by a significant amount of reading I did this summer. This perusal was of early- and mid-20th century cookbooks aimed to new Jewish housewives from the middle class, and Jewish housewives new to the middle class. Besides “educating” them in proper “housekeeping” – which, I suspect, would realistically rely on things learned from family, friends, and life experience – the books were chock-full of recipes, including recipes for cakes when company is coming over soon. Or recipes for cakes from everyday ingredients that one could serve for various occasions.
These cakes seemed, to me, the highlight. As ardent bloggers of mid-century cuisine have noted, these sort of cakes were far more common than the showier and more infamous confections of the era. And many, honestly, seemed delicious. I spotted some familiar bakes – smetanakuchen, banana bread, and apple cake among them. I also spotted the use of various other delicious things – like jam! So I toyed with an old vegan muffin recipe I had, added some eggs and dairy, and…voilà. I have been told that these sort of cakes – “company is coming” cake – are also part of the Soviet/Russian-language cookbook canon, but I do not have the Russian language skills to research this. Any readers care to help?
The cake is very autumnal. I use normal supermarket applesauce – which, on a normal day, makes for a fine replacement for eggs. The sour cream adds to moisture and rise, but you could probably mix in milk. Most of the time for this cake is really in the baking – the prep is very simple. I wrote the recipe in a different format this time – let me know what you think!
Applesauce Raisin Cake
Preheat the oven to 400F. Grease a deep loaf pan or a rectangular (9x13in/23x32cm) pan.
Pour hot water over 1 cup of raisins to cover. Set aside.
Melt 4oz/125g butter on a stove or in the microwave. Then, beat in 1 cup applesauce, 3 tablespoons sour cream, 1 ¼ cups white granulated sugar, and 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice mix until combined. If you do not have pumpkin pie spice mix, use 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon each of ground ginger, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg.
Beat in three large eggs, one at a time, until thoroughly combined.
Add two cups of white all-purpose flour, 2 tsp baking powder, and a dash of salt, and mix thoroughly until you have a thick batter. If your applesauce is runny, you will need to add more flour – for every additional ½ cup flour, add 2 tbsp of white sugar.
Drain the raisins, and fold them into the batter until evenly distributed.
Pour the batter into a pan. Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick or knife come out clean and the top is golden brown. Cool for a while, then store sealed until serving to hold moistness.
Thank you to my classmates at the University of Maryland’s Master in Community Planning program for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe!
