Zosia's Reviews
10 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 10Sort by: Title 
| Date | Rating
A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking
By Marcy Goldman
Whitecap Books Ltd. - 2009
Absolutely Magnificent Caramel Matzoh Crunch : page 263
An easy-to-make sweet that stores well and is great for gift-giving.
It starts with a simple caramel of butter and brown sugar that's brought to a boil and cooked briefly before being poured over a layer of unsalted matzoh crackers. It’s then baked and, while still warm, sprinkled with chocolate pieces which are spread once melted. Once cooled, the crackers are broken apart.
The author says that the original recipe used saltines with unsalted tops. Personally, I thought it could have used a pinch of salt…perhaps next time I’ll add it to the caramel before baking. I also thought that the proportion of chocolate to caramel was off….I would have preferred twice as much chocolate to balance the sweet caramel. But that’s just me…..everyone else loved them the way they were. After all, it is called caramel crunch, so the caramel should be the star!
useful (0)
Delicious crisp, golden cookies that hold a filling of your choice. The cookie has a neutral flavour that allows the filling to shine.
I found the amount of dough the recipe makes a little daunting until I read the author’s notes on the “Hamantaschen production line” which give excellent advice about making both dough and fillings ahead and storing them in workable sized portions. So, I made the full batch of dough and froze half.
The dough is quite unusual…..a cross between a sugar cookie dough and a thick, coffee cake batter when it’s first made and though it firms up after refrigeration, it remains rather soft and pliable. Regardless, it’s very easy to work with and requires very little flour to prevent sticking during rolling.
It bakes into lovely, crunchy, vanilla-flavoured cookies that don’t go soggy even with a moist fruit filling. I filled half with this blueberry filling, and half with nutella.
Mar 22
Made another Nutella-filled batch, this time with the optional egg wash. Cookies had a shiny, golden-coloured finish....much prettier than the first batch. Definitely won't skip that step next time.
useful (0)
Chanukah Beignet Squares : page 208
Fantastic fluffy doughnuts dusted with powdered sugar.
Unlike some that rely on their toppings to taste good, these beignets, enriched with sugar and butter and flavoured with vanilla, were delicious on their own. The dough was very easy to make and work with and required only 1 hour for fermentation. Once the doughnuts were cut from the rolled dough, they were fried after only a short rest….no need to proof.
These were light and airy and just a little too easy to eat……fortunately, I had lots of takers!
useful (0)
Chocolate Cream Cheese Rugelach : page 214
Tender chocolate-y cookies with that characteristic cream cheese tang.
A traditional cream cheese cookie dough is transformed into chocolate with the addition of a little cocoa powder. The author warns that the dough is sticky and that was true when first made but once chilled, it was quite easy to work with as long as the work surface was lightly dusted with flour (make sure to brush the flour from the underside of the dough before shaping the crescents as it’s very visible on the chocolate dough).
The filling recipe provided used nutella (or a similar product) for an extra chocolate-y treat but the alternative of cherry preserves for a black forest flavour was suggested also. I made a batch of each, sprinkling the cherry filled cookies with a little powdered sugar.
These are fantastic little cookies that are quite easy to make and not too sweet; they would make an excellent addition to any holiday cookie tray.
useful (0)
Chocolate Honey Cake : page 131
Chocolate and honey come together to make this moist cake with complex flavours that include chocolate and honey of course, but also a little caramel, a touch of cinnamon and a hint of coffee.
All you need is 2 bowls, some baking staples and a spoon to produce this tasty, oil-based cake. Extracting it from the ungreased tube pan is the trickiest part but the more I bake with Marcy Goldman – she certainly likes her tube pans : ) - the better I get at it. Next time I’ll omit the chocolate garnish as that made removal more difficult; a chocolate glaze could be used instead though the cake doesn’t really need it.
This turned out to be far more delicious than I had anticipated as I’m not a huge fan of honey cake. It’s a great choice for a crowd as it’s large and thin slices hold up well. It provided a nice bit of chocolate at the end of a large meal.
useful (0)
Fresh Blueberry Hamantaschen Filling : page 242
This is a tasty jam-like filling, thickened with corn starch, that tastes of the fresh fruit. Even though I started with frozen berries, it took only minutes to make.
I thought it was a little too sweet so I'll reduce the sugar next time but I'm not certain how to fix the problem of some liquid separating out during cooling and subsequent refrigeration. I used only the thick, fruity part to fill these cookies, leaving the liquid behind and that worked fine as the cookies weren't soggy and the baked filling was still moist.
useful (0)
New Way Chanukah Potato Latkes : page 369
Latkes made with pre-cooked potatoes? Different but still delicious.
The first step of the recipe involved parboiling red-skinned potatoes. The cooking instructions were very detailed and resulted in potatoes that weren’t quite cooked all the way, were very easy to shred and maintained their shape during the mixing of the batter and frying. The batter itself included more eggs than usual, seasoning and a token spoonful of flour.
The purpose of pre-cooking the potatoes was to reduce the frying time, and that it did. I was able to get through the rather large batch of batter in a relatively short time and the latkes turned out as promised, with crispy edges and tender centres. They reheated beautifully.
They had a little bit of a boiled potato flavour and texture (in the centre) and for this reason, I prefer latkes made from raw potatoes. But judging by how quickly they were devoured, I suspect no one else noticed or cared!
useful (0)
Old-Fashioned Deli Cheese Blintzes : page 372
These delicate vanilla crepes filled with a creamy, tangy cheese filling are a delicious treat for a special breakfast or brunch, especially served with a fruit sauce.
The crepe batter is very basic - I made it with milk but I’d like to try it once with seltzer water to see if it lightens the texture. The crepes cooked up quickly in a non-stick pan with no additional fat. They’re not quite as flavourful as my favourite Canadian Living recipe, but they are less eggy and just as easy to work with. The recipe made 20 crepes using a 6” pan.
The dry cottage cheese/farmer’s cheese filling becomes creamy with the addition of sour cream (I used reduced fat) and is slightly sweet, yet tangy.
Once all are cooked, the crepes are then filled, folded and rolled. At this point in the recipe, the directions come to an end and you’re left with rolled cheese blintzes with uncooked egg yolk in the filling! In the intro to the recipe, the author mentions that these are traditionally fried and served with sour cream but no instructions are supplied. I chose to bake them instead (covered in foil at 350Ffor 20 minutes). I think this is a huge oversight in the recipe and if I hadn’t made something like this before, I wouldn’t necessarily have known to do this.
Despite this omission, these are really very good and can easily be made in advance and refrigerated or even frozen.
useful (0)
Sour Cream Yeast Coffee Cake : page 132
I thought this was another bubka/babka-type cake with a cinnamon-walnut filling when I first read the recipe but I was wrong….instead it resembles the “strudel”- type cakes one sees in Eastern European bakeries, usually filled with poppyseeds, but there the resemblance ends; this one is moist, very flavourful and very delicious.
The yeast dough is enriched with butter, sugar, eggs and sour cream and is made somewhat like pastry, with the cold butter cut into the flour. The yeast and wet ingredients are added to this and kneaded. The resulting dough reminds me of brioche in texture - very easy to work with especially after an overnight rest in the fridge. I made ½ the recipe and it produced a large “loaf” that easily served 20.
Really wonderful with an afternoon cup of coffee.
useful (0)
Traditional Friday Night Challah : page 77
This was a fantastic challah, enriched with whole eggs, oil and sugar, that was very easy to make…..no sponges or preferments required and fermentation and proofing times of an hour or less.
The recipe made quite a bit of dough and the book gives several options for shaping it. I chose to make 2 loaves and in hindsight, should have made 3 as the dough rose tremendously in the oven to create huge loaves that were a little difficult to slice.
The crumb was very light and velvety and the bread wasn’t too rich or sweet. Next to this healthy whole wheat challah, this is my favourite challah recipe.
useful (0)