chocolate toffee matzo crunch ice cream

I was sick for a whole week! A business week, but still -- long time to be bedridden. Eating was a chore, thinking and hygiene were exhausting, so I didn't do much of those things. Instead I got cozy with some HBO Go and fell asleep to many an episode of Extras.

I've only just started to get my appetite back and my mind is still feeling mushy. So please, excuse the lack of intro to this recipe for Chocolate Toffee Matzo Crunch Ice Cream, Aaron's new favorite ice cream.


Using David Lebovitz's recipe for Chocolate-Covered Caramelized Matzoh Crunch.

INGREDIENTS
4 sheets unsalted matzohs
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 cup firmly-packed light brown sugar
big pinch of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

RECIPE
Line a rimmed baking sheet (11 X 17) completely with foil, making sure the foil goes up and over the edges. Cover the foil with a sheet of parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375F.

Line the bottom of the sheet with matzoh, breaking extra pieces as necessary to fill in any spaces.

In a heavy duty saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar together, and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the mixture is beginning to boil. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add the salt and vanilla, and pour over matzoh, spreading with a heatproof spatula.

Put the pan in the oven and reduce the heat to 350F degrees. Bake for 15 minutes. As it bakes, it will bubble up but make sure it’s not burning every once in a while. If it is in spots, remove from oven and reduce the heat to 325F, then replace the pan.

Remove from oven and immediately cover with chocolate chips. Let stand 5 minutes, then spread with an offset spatula. Sprinkle with sea salt.

Let cool completely, the break into pieces and store in an airtight container until ready to serve. It should keep well for about one week.


VANILLA ICE CREAM

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/8 cups granulated sugar
3 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup powdered milk
1 1/2 tbs vanilla extract

RECIPE
In a medium bowl, mix the milk and granulated sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Add the powdered milk and mix. Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla. Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker and let mix until thickened.

Break up the candied matzoh into small pieces and stir them into the soft ice cream. Transfer into an air tight container and put it in the freezer to harden.

kosher ink

I originally titled the post Chozen Kosher Ice Cream Takes the Babka. But Chozen Kosher Ice Cream: Babka, Rugelach Flavors + No Conversion Required is good too.

Can a bagel made in Florida be a New York Bagel?

That was the question asked by Sun Sentinel writer John Tanasychuk. His article, on which I based "Florida Bakery Makes Brooklyn Water, Offers Hope for LA's Bagels," says Yes, emphatically.


To be honest though, the whole NY bagel as holy grail thing (pun intended) is total meshugas. The NY bagels I've eaten brought me no closer to enlightenment, nor did they give me deeper happiness, or tighter buns. I've gleaned far greater satisfaction from the Bagel Broker down the street. So the idea that someone would spend that kind of money on a purification + mineralization system to turn Florida tap water into Brooklyn tap water -- if it even works -- is beyond me. Oy!

The SI post is rant-free, I swear by my bubbie.

Hamantashen on JST

It feels thematically acceptable, even appropriate, to file this post according to Jewish Standard Time, which measures time by (often gross) approximation. Indeed, according to JST, posting on hamantashen almost a month after Purim is actually timely.

When people ask my co-baker Rebecca to tell them the story of Purim, she says, "Glad you asked," and dives right in. I do not. Despite the "Esther saves the Jewish people from the evil Haman" part, I can't shake the fact that it is essentially a story of a Jewess who tricks the king into marrying her. (What a stereotype.) So, I'll leave it to wikipedia to fill in the details if you're interested.

For our purposes, it's only really important to know that the featured cookie is named after Haman, the one who ordered the Jews to be killed and depending on who you ask, the triangular cookie is an approximation of either his hat or his ear. However, Becca and I are partial to the hat camp because we are logical people and the idea of triangle ears is absurd.

RECIPE:
Dough:
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
10 Tbs. butter, cut into cubes
2 eggs
2 egg yolks (reserve whites for egg wash)
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Egg wash:
2 egg whites, lightly beaten with 2 tsp. sugar

TIPS FROM BUBBIE:
-the less you handle, the better
-careful pinching
-roll out thin

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a Cuisinart, pulse several times. Add butter, pulse and then process. In a small bowl, beat eggs, yolks and vanilla. Pour egg mixture into bowl, pulse and mix (bottom up) for 10+ seconds. Refrigerate in a ball for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease pan and line with parchment paper. Allow dough to warm for 20 minutes.

Roll to 1/8" thick, cut circles using a 3" round cookie cutter. Place 2 tsp. of filling in the center and brush perimeter with egg wash. Lift dough to partially cover filling. DO NOT PINCH!!! Seal. Brush tops with egg wash. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

Cool and nosh your heart out.

NOTES: Becca thought it would be a great idea to add a little almond extract, so we substituted 1/2 tsp. vanilla for 1/2 tsp. almond--excellent call. We noticed that the more generous we were with the egg wash, the prettier the cookies turned out. Also, the cookies made with the 3" circle were huge, so we made some of them smaller and although I preferred them that way, the fact that only a few remained by the end of the day suggests that they were so delish that nobody else really cared.

CHALLAH!

Making challah was like my second Bat Mitzvah. It was a more tangible coming of age, to say the least, and I believe I am much more of a woman today than I was at 13 thanks in no small part [I estimate 70%] to the fact that I am now learned in the making of the bread.



Ingredients:
5 cups flour
1/2 cup cugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 pkgs yeast
3 eggs
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups boiling water

Combine flour, salt, yeast and sugar . Melt the butter in the 1 1/2 cups boiling water then add them to the mix. Add 2 of the eggs. Kneed for 10 minutes, slowly adding flour so it becomes doughy - DON'T ADD TO MUCH! Refrigerate, 1 hour.

Knock down dough, divide into 3 sections and then braid each to form the challah. Place the braided dough on a greased sheet on the top shelf of the oven (WITHOUT HEAT) with a pan of water on the lower shelf, for 1 hour.

Remove from the oven and glaze with the third egg, beaten. Cook at 350 degrees for about 1/2 hour.




NOTES: The bread's lopsided tumescence is easily remedied by rolling out the individual strands of the braid more evenly. The texture was perfectly pillowy though and thoroughly addicting. Also, the bread was on the sweeter side of the challah spectrum which I'm not used to (just a matter of what you grew up with) but my friends loved.


*Thanks to Leslie who, in keeping with the Bat Mitzvah analogy, acted as honorary rabbi and thereby made my womandom possible.

Shmura Matzoh Pizza

If they've got this in NYC, no doubt it can be found somewhere in LA (Shoiman Oaks, bubbie?). This article from Mark Bittman's blog sings the praises unleavened bread; not the Manischewitz you're likely to find at the typical seder table, but some serious, handmade stuff from the Hasidic hood. As contributor Edward Schneider notes, it offers some serious culinary benefits: freshness, wheat flavor, and crunch. I'm listening.

So, I this got me thinking: this could make an awesome flatbread pizza base. The problem, as anyone whose ever had to go through eight days of eating the stuff, is that it gets soggy, and fast. How can we make this work? Make a bunch of toppings, throw them together, and put them in oven before they even go on the matzoh to cut down on juice/oil seepage, maybe? Seems like this could, at the very least, make pesach a little more exciting and at most, make its way into the secular mouth as a snappy new snacky. Yiddische Taco Truck, anyone?