Whole Orange Cake

Sometimes you spy a recipe somewhere, decide you have to make it, and it becomes a favorite. Other times, you have an idea for a bake, and go searching until you find a recipe that meets your idea. This is one of those times.

While pondering what desserts to bring to my friend’s new years party, I somehow got the idea of making a whole clementine cake. I suppose it may have been influenced by Mary Berry’s recipe for a Whole Orange Cake (I’m on a major Great British Bake Off obsession right now), although I definitely wasn’t thinking directly about it. The first recipe I found was Nigella’s Clementine Cake recipe, which looked wonderful, except it used ground almonds and my friend has a nut allergy.

Continue reading “Whole Orange Cake” →

Apple Honey Cake

For many of us, holidays are a combination of dishes that must be made, new dishes to try, and the sad fact that each person can only eat so much. Every year for Rosh Hashanah, my mother makes a fabulous apple cake. When I moved down here to Texas, I started making it for break-the-fast (the meal following the 25 hour fast during Yom Kippur, which is ten days after Rosh Hashanah) instead, because my friends and I weren’t cooking dinner during Rosh Hashanah. Continue reading “Apple Honey Cake” →

Triple Pomegranate Challah

A slice of pomegranate challah

My friend Molly is always making wonderful challah variations, which besides making my mouth water, also really make me regret how far away I live! Normally I don’t do anything untraditional with my challot, for a couple of reasons. I don’t really make challah during the year, because it’s just me alone, and I go out to eat on Friday night after services. So I only make challah for High Holidays, and I make a somewhat traditional fruited challah (next time try half raisins and half chopped apricots, it’s awesome) and I’m done for the year.

Proofing yeast in pomegranate juice Continue reading “Triple Pomegranate Challah” →

Eggplant,  Pomegranate, and Za’atar Salad

Just in time for the weekend farmers markets, I had to publish this recipe. Like many these days, I can get lost in time browsing Pinterest and food blogs. And I thought I had seen a similar salad, but when I went back, I couldn’t find anything close too what I wanted. So in true Liz fashion, I winged it. What resulted was the salad in my dreams, and one I’ve craved pretty much every week since.

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What I’m Cooking: New Year’s Eve

Many times, I find recipes just like everyone else – the Internet. I don’t always change anything, or fuss with them in any way. I wanted a way to share some of these recipes with you all, without attaching a full blog post to something that may not need it. Hence, “What I’m Cooking.”

I have no idea how often this feature will run, but hopefully it will be a glimpse into my life, and provide links to good food. Today’s post is about the food I made to bring to a New Year’s Eve party at a friend’s. Normally I won’t bring this much, but there had been a couple of cookie recipes I’d been eyeing, and I figured this was the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, I was rushing to get there, and didn’t make the time to take hardly any photographs, for which I apologize!

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Peach Kolaches

I can’t believe it’s been two months since I published anything! I have had a completely crazy fall – I taught 5 cooking classes for the high school students in our religious school and had other baking at the Shul (another word for a synagogue, or a Jewish “church”) kitchens almost every week. We serve lunch after our Saturday services every week, and occasionally do other meals. Our cook handles most of the meal, but I am often asked to help make “fancy” desserts for specific events or to help fill in when it’s a busy week.

Peach Kolaches

On October 30, we had a musical Friday night service with the theme “Deep In The Heart of Texas” which was followed by a Texas-themed dinner. As with all of our themed Friday night dinners, I designed a dessert menu to compliment the theme. It’s a fun challenge for me to come up with the dessert items.  For Texas night, I decided to make Texas sheet cake, pecan pie bars, grapefruit cookies (a riff on my favorite orange cookie recipe), and kolaches. Continue reading “Peach Kolaches” →

Candy Corn Macadamia Nut Blondies

For the last couple of years, when Halloween rolls around, I start craving these Candy Corn Macadamia Nut Blondies. I don’t remember how or why I found that recipe, but it’s been a hit every time I’ve made them. Several times I’ve even made batches for Valentine’s Day, using the Valentines candy corn. It makes an incredibly sweet bar that is reminiscent of fudge – I’ve often described it as fudge with a bit of flour.

Candy corn macadamia nut blondies

Sometimes, though, it seems a bit TOO sweet, if such a thing can be said. This week at work, we had a Halloween-themed chili cook-off, and as with years before, I decided to make a batch of candy cane blondies. Instead of making my standard recipe, I wondered if I could make them more “blondie”-like and a little less fudge-like, thinking it might make them a bit more balanced. Continue reading “Candy Corn Macadamia Nut Blondies” →

Honey Cake Truffles

Honey Cake Truffles

I was trying to find a fall-themed dessert for a Sukkot celebration, which had to meet the criteria of being easy to grab and requiring no utensils. I somehow started thinking about possible truffles – pecan pie, pumpkin pie, apple pie – and looking at various recipes for them. But it just didn’t seem quite right. And then it came to me – why not a honey cake truffle?*

So I did what I usually do – googled various phrases trying to find recipes. I figured it was so obvious it had probably been made a million times. But this was apparently not true. I couldn’t find a single recipe. Continue reading “Honey Cake Truffles” →