Passover Edition! | Just About Baked

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Easy Chocolate Cake

April 28, 2016
Mir
Gluten-Free Goodness, Let Them Eat Cake, Passover Edition!
14 Comments

One more Passover recipe, everyone. After all, the holiday isn’t over until Saturday night! But this one is also gluten-free and just super easy.

The other day, an old friend of mine asked for a chocolate cake recipe for her daughter’s birthday, which happens to fall this week. Since she also keeps Passover and works outside the home, I wanted to make her life as easy as possible.

The key to making this cake work lies with two factors: not overbaking it (it will dry out) and putting in lots of chocolate chips!

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Ganache Linzer Tart (GF and Passover-Friendly!)

April 26, 2016
Mir
Gluten-Free Goodness, Passover Edition!, Pastry Cart, Pie Day
22 Comments

Well, the week marches on. Today was Primary Election day in my state, and I watched a lot of people agonize over which terrible candidate to vote for. Yay for democracy!

Ideally, the voting process should be nothing but exciting, but it’s harder this year than usual. Looking toward November is a worrisome occupation, at least for me. I want to believe that everything will turn out okay, but I’m in a negative frame of mind these days.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I bake. There’s a mindful mindlessness about baking that lets my brain fall away a bit as I make ganache or press tart dough into a pan. The motions are repetitive, soothing, and exactly what I need sometimes. When the result is this mind-blowing linzer tart smothered in ganache and almonds, I can banish all the negativity and just think about the rich flavors exploding in my mouth.

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The Best Passover Sponge Cake

Happy new week! And Happy Passover to everyone out there who is still celebrating all the way through this coming Saturday. Today I have a very special treat for you. Instead of sharing a recipe of mine, my beloved mother has guest written my blog post for today. Are you ready? Here we go!

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Cookie Bars for Passover!

April 21, 2016
Mir
Bars n' Brownies, C is for COOKIE!, Passover Edition!
12 Comments

It’s that time again, my lovelies. Passover is upon us! What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t give you some recipe love?

As I’ve mentioned, this is the most challenging food week of the year. I don’t like matza or anything that tastes like it, so my Passover philosophy is to avoid cooking or baking with it as much as possible. Instead, I use nut flours and potato starch, which taste much closer to the real deal.

Every year I buy a new recipe book, and this year I got Paula Shoyer’s The New Passover Menu. It’s an incredible cookbook, and it includes these cookie bars. My holiday is now officially better!

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Matza Toffee Crunch

I’m posting on a Thursday night, I know. It’s all Passover’s fault.

Have I mentioned that Passover is eight days long?

Yep. It started last Friday night and will end this Saturday night. I will be off all digital devices for the next couple of days in observance of the holiday, so I can’t wait to catch up with everyone Saturday night! I also can’t wait to eat sushi again on Saturday night. Back to normal food.

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Passover Crumb Cake

April 8, 2015
Mir
Cakes, Let Them Eat Cake, Passover Edition!
20 Comments

If you read my blog with any regularity, you know I’m a crumb fiend. I love piling crumbs on everything, like this. Or this. Or this.

There’s no exception to that rule on Passover. In fact, while some people call it the holiday of matza, I call it the holiday of crumbs. If you’re wondering why, think about what matza does. It crumbles everywhere. On floors. In hair. Between tiles. Atop light fixtures.

And there I am, broom and dustpan at the ready, to clean it all up. Which is actually a huge step for me, because I am not good at keeping the house clean, much as I try.

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Chocolate Chip Mandel Bread (Passover Edition!)

I love how different cultures wind up making such similar foods.

For instance, almost every culture I know has a potato, meat or cheese-filled pastry of some kind. We call them different names, but they’re all delicious. And while Italians call a particular kind of cookie “biscotti,” people of Jewish descent call a very similar cookie “mandel bread.”

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Brownies and Blondies (Passover)

April 20, 2014
Mir
Bars n' Brownies, Gluten-Free Goodness, Passover Edition!
2 Comments

Folks, Passover Week is drawing to a close on Just About Baked. Come Wednesday morning, I will be back to posting regular baked goods. Thank the lord and all the powers up above! I can’t take much more of this…

See, I miss the forbidden foods. Like pizza. And sushi. Oh my lord, a week without sushi is a very dark time in my life. You can imagine how well I got through three pregnancies without raw fish. It was a horrible time. So I guess I shouldn’t complain about one week. Especially when I can have brownies!

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Toffee Bars (Passover)

April 18, 2014
Mir
Bars n' Brownies, C is for COOKIE!, Passover Edition!
4 Comments

One of the reasons that I love to bake is that people find homemade goods to be really special. Though my mother didn’t bake super frequently when I was growing up, I loved everything she baked. My favorite recipe was her toffee bars, and I always associate those cookies with feeling happy and nurtured.

So as part of my Passover quest to bake desserts that taste as though they contain flour, I make these toffee bars annually as a tribute to my mother and as an excuse to eat one of my favorite cookies. They’re classic and the base is mainly ground almonds. Yay protein!

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Passover Chocolate Chip Cookies

Welcome back to Passover Week on Just About Baked! Here today is yet another one of my favorites. I’ve never gone a week without eating chocolate chip cookies, and I don’t see why Passover should be any exception. Thus, this cookie!

A few years back, Martha Stewart put out a few gorgeous dessert cookbooks. One was just for cupcakes, another for pie, and then she also did a whole book devoted to cookies. I bought the whole series, of course. I mean, her stuff is amazing and makes me feel like a grubby little kid who can’t figure out how to make something as fabulous. But when I do make a Martha recipe successfully, I feel proud and happy with life. Go figure.