Pesach Baking

So, the first night of Pesach (Passover) is tomorrow night so today it was time to decrumb the kitchen and start the preparations. I'll be cooking for 14 tomorrow (and working all day) so today was baking day. Pesach is the festival that celebrates Moses leading the Jewish slaves out of Egypt. Whilst it is, of course, about remembering a sad story in the past it is also about all the food that needs to be prepared. I've bought the matzah - I love Waitrose. Who would have thought that a supermarket in Surrey would stock kosher food - normally we have to go up to Golders Green to get our supplies. I've also stocked up in matzah meal that I'll use to make kneidlach (matzah balls) and kremsels (matzah pancakes). I've boiled the eggs (traditionally everyone has an egg dipped in salt water at the Seder meal) and the parsley is ready on the windowsill (this will be the green herb that represents spring).

Pesach is the festival when we don't eat bread for 8 days - the story goes that the Jews had to leave Egypt so quickly that the bread didn't have time to rise so we eat matzah (unleavened bread) instead. All the baking that I've done today has therefore not used any flour. I always make a chocolate cake and then trawl the net for a new ground almond based cake. This is the best chocolate cake I have ever made and the recipe came from the Waitrose magazine. The recipe calls for green and black chocolate but I use value dark chocolate instead. It's one of the simplest recipes that tastes gorgeous. Here it is...

300g dark chocolate
275g caster sugar
165g unsalted butter
Pinch of salt
5 large free range eggs
1tbsp ground almonds

Break the chocolate into a microwave proof bowl, add the sugar, butter and pinch of salt. Microwave on defrost for 10 minutes (stir halfway through). Whisk the eggs with the ground almonds. Add the eggs to the chocolate mixture, pour into a 20cm greased tin and bake in an oven heated to 180 degrees centigrade for 35-40 minutes. And here it is....

I also found a new recipe on the net for apple and almond cake. I've been trying to find a recipe for ages that would use up the apples that have been sitting in the fruit bowl and here it is. It's a little more complicated than the chocolate cake but I'm hoping it will taste as good.

3 large eggs
3 apples
Lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
170g marg/butter
1 1/3 cups ground almonds
1tsp baking powder

Peel the apples. cube two of them and put in a bowl with half the lemon juice and 1tbsp sugar. slice the other apple and add lemon juice. Cream the marg and sugar. Add the egg yolks and continue mixing. Add the almonds and baking powder and fold in. Whip the egg whites until the stiff peak stage. Fold into the mixture. Add the cubed apples and fold in. Pour into a 20cm cake tin and place the sliced apples onto the top of the cake, fanned out. Bake in the oven at 150 degrees centigrade for 1 1/4 hours until browned on top.

And here it is (sorry about the dark photo). I'm now looking forward to eating them.

Photos part two

For some reason, blogger just went funny and wouldn't let me finish the previous post. I'm not having much luck this weekend. So here is the rest of the post. If you saw the dolls on the previous post you would know that they were ready to go to their me home. The present opening commenced after we had lit the candles.

As the weather had turned milder we were able to light them in the window so all passers by could see them (also so my youngest nephew couldn't reach them!). It was a lovely sight especially as we had four chanukiahs to lights. My nieces opened their dolls and fell in love with them. On he way home, my nephew turned to my brother and asked for a boy doll for so a birthday. I think that might be the higher form of flattery. I'll have to start thinking about what I will dress him in and how I will model his hair. Ooh, something different to get my creative juices running. I can't wait. I hope you all had a lovely evening las night - I certainly did. It was topped off by Back to the Future II, a little bit of strictly and a lot of Merlin whilst eating homemade pizzas with the family. I'm not sure it can get better than that (maybe if Watford had won rather than drawn that would have bee the icing on the cake).

What a day

It was all going well this morning. Children waved off to school, car scraped of ice and on my to work. And that's when it happened. I was driving along one of the rural roads with hedgerows either side and there must have been a tree branch that I didn't see sticking out. The next thing I knew there was an almighty thump and I thought something was about to fly through my passenger window. Instead it smashed off my side mirror. To be honest, the day just went downhill from there. You know when the day is so bad that all you want to do is go back to bed, wake up and start all over again? Well, that was my day today. All topped off with my car booked in for a new side mirror at the cost of £170. I thought it was going so well this month having bought all the Chanukah and Christmas presents and still having enough to live on. Ho hum, I suppose these things are sent to try us and at least no one was hurt. I hope you had a better day. I'm hoping tomorrow will be a significant improvement. At least we spent time tonight lighting the candles for the fourth night of Chanukah and we even had time to sit together as a family for the evening meal. Sometimes, you just have to be thankful for the small things.

First night of Chanukah

It always amazes me how much you can pack into one day. I managed to visit the Italian shop to stock up on pasta (both large and small) and hobbycraft for some more grosgrain ribbon supplies. I also bought some plastic head pins which I'm going to add to my heart pin cushions. Dd and I had vegetable soup with mini pasta for lunch which we always enjoy and then I spent the afternoon finishing off my Chanukah garlands. They're now displayed around the lounge and look like this....

I also have them hanging on the piano and on the curtain rail. I'm really pleased with how they turned out. We lit the candles tonight for the first night of Chanukah.

Doesn't it look pretty. We're supposed to light them in the window so they can be seem by passers by but it is so cold at the moment that I didn't want to keep our curtains open as the house is only just starting to warm up. Maybe tomorrow. I hope you all had a lovely day.

Chanukah preparations

Chanukah is the Jewish Festival of Lights which is celebrated on the 25th of Kislev every year. As the Jewish calendar is lunar, that means that sometimes Chanukah starts as early as the end of November and at other times it starts as late as the end of December. This year is starts tonight - 8 December. Chanukah celebrates the time in history when the Maccabees led a revolution against the assimilation of the Jews. According to tradition, at the time of the rededication of the temple, there was very little oil left to light the everlasting light above the ark (something that you'll see in all synagogues but now it runs on electricity!). By some miracle, the oil that was found lasted for 8 days instead of 1 and so we celebrate this festival of 8 days.

On the 25th of Kislev are the days of Chanukkah, which are eight... these were appointed a Festival with Hallel [prayers of praise] and thanksgiving. -Shabbat 21b, Babylonian Talmud

This is a lovely festival and really adds a bit of joy and light to this dark time of the year. In our family, we light the candles every night, adding another candle each night so on the last night we will have 8 candles to light plus the servant candle (that does all the lighting). The tradition is to give a small present each night and to have Chanukah gelt (Yiddish for money). We also play the dreidel game and eat fried food (no one said that this is a healthy festival). The traditional fried foods are doughnuts and latkes (fried potato cakes). I'm really looking forward to this tonight.

I've been working on some Chanukah decorations for the mantelpiece. My plan is that they will be finished in time for tonight. I've been making some felt dreidels and some stars of David.

Here are the dreidels. They have a נ on the red ones and a ג on the purple ones. In the game, you spin the dreidel and if it lands on נ you win nothing and if it lands on ג you win all the money in the pot. There is also a ש and a ה on the real dreidel but I couldn't fit everything onto the felt ones. What do you think? I'm planning to make a garland with the dreidels and the stars of David below....

I haven't finished these yet so I have a bit of sewing to do this afternoon in between some marathon marking sessions. I hope I managed to finish them in time.

Here is one our chanukiahs ready to light and our stash of candles (as everyone has their own chanukiah). My dd got them all ready at the beginning of the week. As you can see we have one candle in as it's day one and we also have the relevant candle for the lighting.

Do you have any special traditions in your family? I'd love to hear about them. Have a wonderful day.