Chocolate fudge cookies

I have actually done a ton of baking over the Passover holiday (pesach to you Hebrew speakers).

But somehow with the older kid home for the past three (!) weeks, a live in house guest, work, etc, I haven't been able to share any of this unleavened awesomeness with you.

These cookies will make ample reparations, trust me.

They are a cross between a brownie, baked truffles, and chocolate heaven.

What is your favorite Passover dessert?

Chocolate Fudge Cookies

1 egg

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup butter

1/2 cup chocolate chips, or 150 g bar chocolate

1/4 cup potato starch

3 T cocoa powder

Pinch salt

Beat egg and sugar until pale and fluffy. In separate bowl, melt butter and chocolate. Add to egg mixture. Add remaining ingredients. Chill in freezer half an hour or more. Heat oven to 175C. Bake about 10-12 minutes on parchment paper until puffy and no longer shiny on top. Let cool several minutes before you even think about taking them off the sheet.

Happy pesach!

 

Purim baskets

Have you noticed how some bloggers post endless how-to recipes for a particular holiday weeks in advance?? And of course this is in addition to a sparkling clean house, 6 kids, 2 dogs and a soccer-traveling minivan.

I am not that mom.

Today is Purim, the Jewish holiday celebrating the thrashing we gave to our enemies in Iran years ago. It's traditional to give gift baskets of food to friends. I wanted to do a how to weeks ago and get you all prepared. But at the end of the day I am lucky to have made them in time.

 

This year's theme was "v'nahafochu" which means, shake things up! Ok not literally. But it means things are all turned around.

Like these cupcakes. I totally did not come up with this idea. But I am certainly glad that bakerella did, so we can all enjoy the silly cuteness!

 

Orange cupcakes with brownie "burgers" and icing ketchup/mustard/lettuce.

My kitchen is a complete and utter mess right now and may never recover, but it sure was fun!

So here is the lineup of non mix items:

Cupcakes from Martha Stewart - if you want it nondairy, replace milk with orange juice and add orange zest.

Brownies from yours truly

Sugar cookies from sugarbelle

Frosting: 1 cup (200g) margarine, 4 cups (500g) powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup orange juice (or less, as needed)

 

 

 

 

Salted Caramel Chocolate Cookies

I, like most olim, am guilty of thinking that all my precious American products do not exist here in the holy land. For the most part, I just don't know where to find them. So you can imagine the utter joy I had in finding soft caramels at the local "super bonus". To be honest, they have a bit of an artificial vanilla aftertaste, but I'm willing to overlook that and be giddy with thoughts of caramel apples, caramel brownies... you name it.

Strawberry Season

I haven't been around here much lately.  Yeah, see, I've been busy feeling sorry for myself in the "oh, my husband works so many hours and hogs the computer, and I can't blog from my work computer, and anyways I'm busy doing laundry all the time" sort of way.

But then that pesky husband of mine did something incredibly sneaky. He bought me a tablet computer. And now I don't have anything to complain about, which is a pity since we all know that is my favorite pasttime.

So I had to haul myself into the kitchen and occupy myself otherwise.

Candy Cane Crinkles

 We've been back for a few weeks, and already my supplies are dwindling. Not sleeping = coffee ALL the time = my bag of dunkin dark roast is looking pretty near empty.

I have one bag of candy melts to make cake pops, and I'm hoarding them jealously. And the two boxes of candy canes that miraculously got here in-tact despite being carried to the tower of london and back? Well, after today's cooking venture I might not even have enough to make a peppermint version of the magic ice cream.

Mini Chocolate Eclairs

Ugggghhh. Sorry, that's not a very polite way to begin a conversation, but that's the way I feel right now.

I got it in my head this week that life would not be complete without mini chocolate eclairs. Do you ever get this feeling? Then I saw how many eggs were in my recipe, and my heart nearly stopped. It's probably a good thing that I haven't gotten my cholesterol checked in a while.

But I saw this huge carton of eggs at a local fruit store, and I decided that the heavens were trying to tell me to make eclairs. Isn't it nice when you get approval from above for baking projects?

Guilt Free Coconana Muffins

There are about a million good banana cake/muffin recipes out there.

In fact, I had fully intended to make one of those very recipes. Except I kept on adding a bit of this and that and substituting, and I wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out. And so I figured, what the heck. Make it "healthy" so I don't feel guilty about eating four muffins instead of lunch. Not that I would do anything like that.

So here you have it. Whole wheat, reduced fat chocolate chip coconana muffins.

Only The Best Chocolate Brownies Ever

Between last night and this morning I have made about eighty four thousand different dishes. I have three friends coming to visit and apparently I think they eat like elephants. Did you know that elephants can eat up to 300 kg/day? It's sort of disturbing how many websites discuss the eating patterns of elephants.

But I digress. Cooking makes me sort of loopy sometimes.

So do these brownies. They make me go so crazy I turn into the type of animal that steals the food meant for it's family. Whoa, did you know there's even a name for this? It's called kleptoparasitism. Gee, google is a splendid creature.

I should probably stop.

Sailor Cake

See this guy? He's going on top of a birthday cake for my boy who loves ships, and sailors, and the like. So, like the good mommy that I am, I baked a moist, 3- layer chocolate cake, filled with chocolate buttercream.

Chocolate Cupcake Bliss

I've been planning on making cupcakes for a while. They're perfect for me- cute, don't require great decorating skills, big wow factor. Except now that the closest store sells chocolate chips for 15 shekels a package ($4.25), I've learned that I have to be prepared.

I have to admit, it's getting a bit out of control. And I don't even want to tell you how little butter was left at the end of today. 

So there I was with all the essential food groups and no ideas.

No ideas= make chocolate. Am I right or am I right??