Flourless Apple Almond Cake

   

I found the recipe for this cake in Nigella Lawson's cookbook Feast.  There is a whole section with Passover recipes.  What I love about this cake is it is actually flourless.  I have found that many Passover cakes and cookies use matzo meal instead of flour, rather than going completely flourless.  This is inconvenient because I don't keep matzo meal in the house and because it doesn't tend to make a great cake.  Anyway, this cake, made ground ground almonds and applesauce, is deliciously moist and tasty.  In fact it is so tasty it would be a good cake to make anytime of the year (especially if you can't eat gluten).

P.S. I apologize for the bad picture, I completely forgot to take a photo before I cut it up last night, so I had to take one today with the leftovers.  Oops!

Charoses/Charoset/Haroset~With recipe!

Ok, I realize that this is not a dessert, it is actually the apple nut mixture that is part of the Passover seder.  That said, it is really yummy and makes a good snack or even dessert.  Every year I ask, "why don't we make this during the year, not just at Passover." My mom replies, "I don't know, we should make it more often."  And then we don't.  We should though.  It's really quite good.  You can eat it on matzo or crackers (when it isn't Passover) as a nice afternoon snack.  It also works well on top of vanilla frozen yogurt (or ice cream).

My ingredients are just a starting point.  Play around with quantities and even different flavors if you want (for example a pinch nutmeg might add a nice taste).

Ingredients:
5 cups of chopped apple-this translates to about 4 apples, a mix of crisp green and red apples works nicely, but whatever you have lying around is fine.
1 1/2 cups of chopped walnuts-you can cut back by about 1/4 cup if you'd prefer, but I like it nutty.
9 tbsp red wine-we used a Rioja, because that is what we had.  If you use something sweeter, you might want to cut back on the sugar.
6 tsp sugar
5 tsp cinnamon
Zest of one small lemon, or to taste-or none at all if you'd prefer.

Mix all the ingredients together in a large glass bowl.  Taste it.  If it is too dry add a little more wine.  Too tart or winey?  Add more sugar.  When you have adjusted it to your liking, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.  Let it sit for at least 2 hours before you eat it.  This give the flavors time to blend together and the apple to soak up some of the wine.

Cinnamon Sugar Muffins

  

The day I brought the Thumbprint Cookies into my class, one of my classmates brought in amazing cinnamon and sugar coated mini(ish) muffins from a local bakery.  They were so good that I ate two.  I had to figure out how to make them.  Turns out that my Williams-Sonoma Muffins cookbook has a recipe for cinnamon muffins topped with cinnamon sugar.  I made them, and I think they turned out just as yummy!  (Although the coating to muffin ratio wasn't quite as good...the ones from the bakery were fully coated in cinnamon sugar and these were only topped with it.  Next time I'll make them mini muffin size and roll them in the sugar.)

Basically these are a heavy, cinnamon and nutmeg flavored, buttermilk and baking soda leavened dough.  It is almost a doughnut dough, but the taste of the final product differs from doughnuts quick significantly, since it is baked instead of fried.  The key is, once they are cool, dip the top of the muffin in melted butter, then in a cinnamon sugar mixture.  This makes the top beautiful and sparkly and really tasty!

Cranberry Thumbprint Cookies

   

I had to make them a little smaller to make them fit in the muffin papers.  As you can see, this resulted in a boatload of cookies.

I haven't posted in ages, sorry!  I mention that because this post is technically about cookies I made for Valentines Day.  The cookie itself is a buttery vanilla cookie.  I rolled the dough into a ball and put it into a mini muffin paper.  Rather than using my thumb to make the indentation (because they were too small) I used the end of a wooden spoon.  Then I put about 1/8 of a teaspoon of cranberry jelly (real jelly, like for toast, not the cranberry jelly from a can that you eat with turkey at Thanksgiving) into the indentation.  The recipe I used called for berry jelly (strawberry, I think) but I thought the cranberry would be nice and winter-y, plus I really like cranberry.

Usually thumbprint cookies are made like regular cookies, flat on a baking sheet, but I decided to make them in mini muffin cups.  I did this because I was bringing them into my political science class and it seemed more sanitary this way.  I think they look cute this way!