Gelt Trip: Brown Butter Toffee Crunch Bars

Toffee bars, but with the toffee and butter flavors amplified. Browning makes the butter flavor more intense and complex, and toffee chips add texture and highlight the caramel flavor of the crust. Using chocolate gelt is a fun holiday touch.

Latest Best Corn Muffins Ever

Give me 22 minutes, and I’ll give you a dozen of the best corn muffins you have ever tasted. Sweet and moist, with a maple-ey note that makes you think of corn pancakes drenched in syrup. This recipe originally appeared in Good Housekeeping at the request of a reader who had tasted them at Heathcote Tavern in Scarsdale, New York.

Pumpkin Bars with Streusel Crust

Having turned my pecan pie into bar cookies, I decided to do the same with my pumpkin pie. I used the same crust recipe as for the pecan bars, but used brown sugar and added in a little cinnamon to give the dough a streusel flavor.

Maple Pecan Bars

Is it just me, or do you also find it next to impossible to find pareve deep dish pie crusts in the freezer section of the supermarket right before Thanksgiving? They are dairy, or the only crusts left are all broken, or something. Maybe I should have shopped earlier?

Homemade crusts are better, anyway, but I am so not in the mood to be rolling out crusts.

Fortunately, I remembered about my pecan bars. The crust is an easy press-in dough and, when all is said and done, you end up with forty bars, which is a bigger serving yield than you would get from a pie anyway. Isn’t it easier to platter and serve bar cookies than pie? Most people want just a nibble after all that heavy food.

And these pecan bars are exceptional, with a perfect balance of nuts, maple brown sugar goo and crust.

See, it turned out for the best. Who needs frozen pie crusts? Not me.

Triple Ginger Pecan Cookies from The Cancer Fighting Kitchen

These cookies are from The Cancer Fighting Kitchen, by Rebecca Katz. I’m not sure why they are triple ginger because I see only powdered ginger and candied ginger in the recipe. Does anyone else see the third type of ginger? It doesn’t matter, the cookies are delicious and healthy (well, healthier). Katz’s book explains the health value, particularly during cancer treatment, for use of ingredients like ginger, coconut oil and alternative flours (this recipe uses spelt and barley), and some of this information is available on her website.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Cupcakes

So the theme for the November Kosher Connection is “stuffing,” and I originally was going to go with my traditional bread stuffing, or maybe mini pumpkins stuffed with pumpkin bread pudding, or a savory stuffed vegetable (like this tempeh quinoa stuffed acorn squash) or something, anything connected to traditional Thanksgiving flavors. But, then I saw an Oreo Stuffed Bundt Cake on Bakers Royale, and changed my plans.

These are cupcakes stuffed with a cookies and cream filling, glazed with chocolate and garnished with an additional bit of cookie. It looks fancy, but is really not hard to make. A multi-step recipe, yes, that it is, but each step is dead simple.

Update: even though I thought people would be more in the mood for pumpkin and pecan pie on Thanksgiving, these cupcakes disappeared fast.

Lech Lecha Sand Trifles

In a discussion about Lech Lecha, Rav Kook noted that Hashem promises Avraham that his descendents will be as numerous as the stars. Later, Hashem will promise Avraham that his decendants will be as the sand on the seashore.  Why sand and stars? The metaphor of stars emphasizes the importance of each individual Jew: “Every soul is a universe unto itself, as the Sages wrote: “One who saves a single soul of Israel, it is as if he has saved an entire world“ (Sanhedrin 37a).” On the other hand, the importance and power of sand lies not in any individual grain, and the metaphor of sand alludes to the collective purpose of the Jewish people.

Over at Parsha Post, Rabbi Neil Fleishmann brings up the observation of the Kli Yakar that there are actually three similes for Avraham’s descendants:  sand, stars and dust. The stars represent us at our height of greatness, the dust represents us at our lowest, and the sand represents our ability to endure.

For this parsha dessert, I went with something super easy. Just crush vanilla cookies or tea biscuits and layer them with a vanilla mousse made with Tofutti “cream cheese,” Rich’s Whip, almond milk and vanilla pudding mix. Very easy to make right before Shabbos with your kids.

Parshat Noach: Mabul Cupcakes

I got the idea to make marble cupcakes for Parshat Noach from Leora. Marble sounds like mabul, which means flood. Cute . . . right?

I took a banana cake recipe from Leora, too, and marbelized it with chocolate batter. If you want a plain chocolate vanilla version, try my vanilla chocolate swirl cupcakes for your mabul dessert.

Nature Valley-esque Granola Bars

A while back, I posted a recipe for chewy granola bars that reminded me of the Quaker Oats brand. The thin, dense, crunchy granola bar–like the ones made by Nature Valley–proved more difficult to reproduce.  But, victory at last!

The trick, I think, is pulverizing the oats so that they compact down tightly more readily.

Super Easy Chocolate Pie a la Mode (Dairy Free)

 

Imagine a pie that has the flavor of brownies, but the texture of pecan pie. That is chocolate chess pie. Now, imagine that pie, served warm, with a scoop of coffee ice cream (pareve).

Sounds delicious, right? The best part is that it is ridiculously easy.