Cookies for Passover from The Daily Cookie

Passover is almost over, but I wanted to share these two amazing desserts that I made for the week for my husband, who observes the custom of not eating leavened products during this time.

Pareve Brownies

The recipes are from The Daily Cookie, written by Anna Ginsburg of Cookie Madness, my favorite cookie blog of all time.

I first met Anna in 2006 at a Cooking Light Reader Recipe Contest finalist cook-off event held in Birmingham, AL where Cooking Light Magazine’s editorial division is located.  I was completely in awe of her. She had just taken the grand prize of a million dollars (!!) in the 42nd Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest! She had made appearances in the Today show, cooked with onstage with Oprah, and was a seasoned veteran of the recipe contesting circuit, which I had just fallen into by fluke. Happily, we were seated at the same table during the Awards Night Dinner, and I got to know her and her wonderful husband, Todd.  While we did not win our categories (I was in Main Dish and she was in Dessert), we were featured in the magazine and our recipes appear in the  2008 Cooking Light Annual Recipes Cookbook (we’re both on pages 96-97!).

More importantly, we became friends and our families have met and gotten to
know each other throughout the years.

When Anna told me about the book she was writing last year during a visit to Brooklyn, I was so excited for her. We bought a copy of The Daily Cookie when it was released by Andrews McMeel Publishing last November.

The Daily Cookie is a cookie compendium of cookie recipes for every day of the year, plus fun facts about holidays and events of each day as well.  When we first got our copy, Jamie and I went through the whole book reading the cookie names and fun facts to each other as bedtime reading.  It is fun to look up special dates and see what that day has to offer.  For example, Jamie’s birthday, June 30th, has a recipe for Kryptonite Macarons (pistachio macarons filled with dark chocolate cream) because it is Superman’s birthday as well!  It also happens to be Meteor Watch Day.

We had a blast going through the whole recipe book and plotting which cookies we would make and learning fun facts about each day of the year.  I can’t imagine what Anna went through to create all 365 recipes let alone testing them and writing them. She’s a cookie goddess, so it makes sense that she did.  She posts a new recipe on her blog every day.

Anna is a meticulous baker and has done countless experiments with ingredients:  using different ratios; different brands; different baking methods; etc.  She has done comparison analyses of different types of cookie recipes on Cookie Madness to determine the best kind of cookie for different cookie characteristics (please check our her blog!) The Daily Cookie is also as thorough, meticulous and organized. It’s truly inspiring and such a joy to read.

In the back of the book there are several indices of the recipes arranged by cookie type, pan-size, batch size, convenience, special diets, makes a great gift, and bake sale favorites, in addition to the common alphabetized index! I just love that. 🙂

For Passover, I made the Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (September 8— also International Literacy Day; Founding of Saint Augustine, Florida, in 1565; and Scotch tape invented in 1930) as well as the Pareve Brownies (April 7 — also World Health Day). Both are really simple to make and so delicious, they will be made year round in this household!

Poor Denis — the treats were made especially for him, and all the other non-observers in the family gobbled them up with abandon as well.  The Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies recipe is here on Anna’s blog.  A slight difference is that in the book they are sans chopped peanuts and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, but I made them plain without either and they were SOOOO good and so easy to make!  Just five ingredients!

The Pareve Brownies recipe is reprinted below with permission.  If you are a cookie lover like we are or know a cookie lover, please buy this book! It is chock full of great cookie recipes and is a great read as well. The only dilemma is deciding which cookie to make first!

Pareve Brownies
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons matzo cake meal
3/4 cup unsweetened natural style or Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1/4 teaspoon plus an extra pinch of salt
2/3 cup walnuts or pecans, toasted and finely chopped
1/3 cup pareve or vegan semisweet chocolate chips (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 325 F and place a rack in the center. Line an
8-inch square metal baking pan with nonstick foil.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or in
a large mixing bowl, using a handheld electric mixer, beat the sugar,
eggs, and egg yolk on medium speed for about 2 minutes or until light.
Beat in the vegetable oil, cake meal, cocoa powder, and espresso powder
and continue mixing until smooth. Beat in the salt and walnuts, and
then stir in the chocolate chips. Pour into the prepared pan.

3. Bake the brownies for 28 to 32 minutes, or just until they appear
set. For this recipe, it’s important not to overbake. Let cool
completely in the pan. Grasp the foil, lift from the pan, set on a
cutting board, and cut into sixteen squares.

Baker’s Notes: Espresso powder gives these unleavened brownies a rich
deep flavor. If you can’t find matzo cake meal, put a little regular
matzo or matzo meal in a small coffee grinder and grind it until it is
very fine.

Boys Can Bake Too (and Create Candy Sushi)!

Do you remember Easy Bake Ovens?  They still make them, though I don’t know if they still are pink or have pink trim (they probably do).  My son wanted one for Christmas/Hannukah last year, and I said, “No, Hon.” But not because it is marketed as a “girl toy”.  It’s because we have a really great Cuisinart toaster oven with convection feature and “we don’t need no stinkin’ Easy Bake Oven” that probably has a light bulb to bake miniature cakes!

Instead we gave him this bake set I got a long time ago at FAO Schwarz when he was a baby and had completely forgotten about.  I always dreamed of baking with him even before he could talk.  Lucky for me, seven years later, he loves to bake!   So I was really happy when I rediscovered this set buried in Denis’ closet.

Glad J didn't notice the gender stereotyping on package!

It irritated me that it was marketed only to girls, but luckily, Jamie didn’t seem to notice or care. At least the packaging wasn’t all pink and magenta…  We quickly dumped the box, and I put the utensils in a bag to be stored in my baking cabinet.

The Boutique Bakery set includes a spatula, a whisk, a rolling pin, mixing bowls, a wooden spoon, a muffin tin, three bread pans, cookie cutters, toothpicks (for testing) and muffin liners — all mini sized!

To test out the set, we first made a Mini Chocolate Loaf.  I used Anna’s recipe from Cookie Madness and halved it.  Instead of ganache, we just covered the loaves with chocolate chips.  We baked it in the Cuisinart and I let him press the buttons to set the temperature.

The Mini Chocolate Loaf came out out beautifully.  The crumb was moist, the flavor great, and because it was so small, it was the perfect size for all three of us.

Then, the last week,  I discovered a half batch of  cookie dough buried not in our closet (yikes!) but in our freezer from the holidays!  Do you see a pattern here…?  I thawed it in the refrigerator, and when Jamie had a play date with his friend, Lucas (who also loves to bake) we used it to make cookies.  The child sized rolling pin was perfect for rolling out their doughs.  I had them working on parchment paper and covered the dough with saran wrap to keep it from sticking.  Then they cut out shapes using the mini cookie cutters from the bake set.  I chilled the dough for awhile, then baked them.

Sprinkles decorating station

For decorating, I was too lazy to make frosting, and I was planning to use Nutella instead, when I discovered someone had been eating it late at night so we didn’t have enough… So we improvised and used raspberry preserves instead.  It actually tasted quite delicious in place of frosting or Nutella!

Some of the boys' decorated cookies

Though it isn’t really baking per se, Jamie requested that I share his most recent sweet creation on my blog.  I aspire to avoid being one of those parents who think everything their kid does is amazing, so I don’t put everything up that he wants me to, believe me!  But this one was kind of cute and it ties into this theme of cooking not being a girls only activity. And he came up with the whole thing independently of me (I was otherwise occupied with my daily Ken Ken!)

I present to you — Jamie’s Candy Sushi:

I guess it says something about our household that we have a ton of random candy lying around — mostly due to Denis who has a wicked sweet tooth!  We keep it in a container with the marshmallows.  So the other night, Jamie asked if he could have a marshmallow, an orange jelly candy, one Lindt truffle, and two chocolate sticks.  Typing it all out, it sounds like an outrageous amount of sugar, but they were all pretty small! The next thing I knew, he was cutting the marshmallow, truffle, and orange candy into pieces  and making a “tableau” as he called it.  It turned out to be dessert sushi.

chopsticks are edible!

I’m so glad I have a little baker who shares my passion for creating yummy things in the kitchen!

Chocolate Mini Loaf

Adapted from Cookie Madness

I halved the recipe, used milk in place of buttermilk and omitted chocolate ganache.

nonstick spray

1.4 cup cake flour (2 oz.)

1/4 cup granulated sugar (2.25 oz.)

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon lightly beaten egg

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons brewed coffee, cooled

1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

 

1. Preheat the oven to 325F. Spray one 3×5 inch mini loaf pan nonstick spray (I also lined the bottom with parchment paper).
2. Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt in small yet deep mixing bowl and stir very well. Add the soft butter and mix with the flour mixture. Stir in the milk. Stir mixture vigorouslyfor about two minutes, scraping sides of bowl, until smooth.
3. Mix the lightly beaten egg, vanilla and cooled coffee together in a small bowl or measuring cup. Add to the batter in three parts, stirring gently with a spoon until mixed. Stir in half of the chocolate chips. Then sprinkle remaining chips on top.  Bake on center rack at 325 F for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan set on a wire rack for about 10 minutes, then carefully turn from pan.

Dessert Sushi

Adapted from Jamie

1 Marshmallow

1 Lindt White Chocolate Truffle

1 Orange jelly candy or other soft candy, cut into pieces

2 chocolate sticks (Pocky would work too)

1.  Cut marshmallow and truffle in half.
2.  Scoop out some of the filling from the truffle and  set aside.

3.  Top marshmallow with candy pieces.  Then top with filling from truffle.

4.  Eat with chocolate sticks