Gratitude

This Mother’s Day, I am celebrating my kids. Note to Shoyer children: do not buy me flowers, gifts or chocolate. No need to schlepp up breakfast in bed. Just continue to be nice to me all year round and you will always be off the hook on Mother’s Day.

I now have four teenagers, which would scare most people. Mine do not scare me. I am not saying that they are perfect, but they are definitely my four favorite people in the world. When given the choice, I would rather be with them (and husband) than anyone else. They are witty, interesting kids with strong opinions across the social, political and religious spectra and extremely entertaining. They have introduced me to Macklemore’s poetry, opened my eyes to new sports, taught me to see Renoir paintings in a whole new way, and inspired me to be a better friend. I am a better person for having mothered them and cannot wait to see what they teach me next.

As my kids will happily tell you, I tend to mother with a huge dose of neglect -- but in a good way.  When I redesigned my kitchen years ago, I put all the dishes and breakfast food in low cabinets so they could feed themselves. I still buy only the half gallons of milk that little people could lift and pour into their cereal themselves. I am not one of those mothers who sit next to their kids while they do homework and I do not edit all their English papers. One of them would have to have foot surgery to get me to make him or her breakfast or a school lunch at 7:15 am. They have thrived and become capable people who can all load and unload the dishwasher, change planes in large foreign airports by themselves, do laundry, appreciate the value of coupons, and cook their favorite dishes without my help.

They will tell you that they like the neglect and appreciate that I am not a Tiger Mom. All I know is that one of my kids was accepted to a top college, another takes Chinese online in the evenings, and they all do pretty well in school. But most of all, they are nice people. Their best quality is their gratitude. They truly know that they have a great life of summer camp, vacations, and Apple products. They always thank me -- for dinner every night, for takeout on Sundays, for a haircut, for letting their friends stay over and for every vacation. And they always thank me for the homemade desserts, even the rejects.

So here is the dessert that says “thank you” to the Shoyer kids for being such wonderful children. Moms  -- make these for your kids this Mother’s Day and thank them for making you a better person for mothering them.  Any kids over 10 reading this -- BAKE THEM FOR YOUR MOTHER. Have a sweet Mother’s Day this Sunday, and every day.

Enjoy this dairy dessert on Shavuot as well.

Cinnamon Apple Pop Tarts 

a la Mode with Caramel Sauce

Makes 12 -16, depending on size and shapes

My children rejected the jam, berry and Nutella-filled ones, but your family can fill the dough as they like. For my own mother, she will only eat them if filled with chocolate. Kids like the cinnamon glaze, but I prefer my pop tarts straight up and less sweet. You can omit the ice cream and caramel sauce and just eat the pop tarts, or you can spread the caramel sauce on top of the pop tarts.

Dough

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting work surface and sprinkling on dough

3 tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

2 tablespoons milk or soymilk

6 tablespoons ice cold water

Apple and Cinnamon Filling

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

¼ cup sugar

2 medium granny smith apples, peeled, cored, cut into ¼-inch cubes

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 pinches nutmeg

1 large egg, beaten mixed with 1 teaspoon water for assembly

Glaze

¾ cup confectioner’s sugar

1/8 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon boiling water

To serve: any flavor ice cream and caramel sauce

Caramel Sauce

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon water

1/4 cup whipping cream

1 tablespoon salted butter

Dough

Place the flour, sugar, salt, and butter into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse for 20 seconds, or until the mixture looks like sand. Add the milk and process for 10 seconds. Add the cold water, 2 tablespoons at a time, and process each time for 10 seconds, just until the mixture comes together. Divide in half, wrap each piece in plastic, and flatten. Place in the freezer for 40 minutes, or overnight in the refrigerator.

Apple Filling

Meanwhile, prepare the apple filling. Heat a medium frying pan over medium heat and add the butter and sugar. When the butter has melted, add the apple cubes, cinnamon and nutmeg and stir. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until the apples are fork tender. Place into a bowl and let cool to room temperature, about 10 minutes. 

Assembly

Set one piece of parchment on the counter, sprinkle it with some flour, and place one of the dough halves on top. Sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough and then place the second piece of parchment on top. Roll on top of the parchment to roll the dough until it is about 9 X 16 inches. Lift up the top parchment several times and sprinkle the dough with more flour. Try not to roll the edges too thin.

Cut the dough into either 3 X 4-inch or 2 ½ X 4-inch rectangles, squares, or use cookie cutters, making sure you have pairs of each shape. Re-roll scraps. 

Use a metal spatula to lift up each pair of dough pieces and place onto a piece of parchment trimmed to fit a cookie sheet. Brush half the shapes with the egg wash. Scoop up a heaping tablespoon of apple filling and place onto the brushed dough pieces, spreading in one layer and leaving a ¼ to 1/3-inch border. If using jam, two teaspoons is usually enough per pop tart. Place a second piece of the same size of dough on top, stretch a little to cover, and press tightly to seal the edges. Use the tines of a fork to seal the edges and leave decorative lines. Place the cookie sheet with the assembled pop tarts in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Use a fork, toothpick or skewer to poke holes in the top dough to let the steam out. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the bottom and edges are lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack.

Glaze

Place the confectioner’s sugar into a medium bowl. Add the vanilla, cinnamon and boiling water, and whisk until smooth. Let sit for at least 5 minutes to thicken up and either drizzle the glaze over the tarts or spread to cover, as desired.

Caramel

To make the caramel, place the sugar and water into a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook on medium-high heat without stirring. When the sugar starts to color on the edges, stir the mixture, then let cook, stirring occasionally, until it is a uniform amber color. Turn heat to low, remove saucepan from the heat and add the cream.  Be careful, as the mixture will bubble up.  Add the butter and stir. Return to the heat and cook for one minute, or until the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and let cool. The caramel can be made 5 days in advance.  Store covered at room temperature.

Serve the pop tarts with ice cream and caramel sauce.

If you fill your pop tarts with jam, omit the cinnamon in the glaze to make the pretty white glaze shown here.

My Life as an Air Traffic Controller

One day last year I was sitting in my kitchen at 5:00 pm checking email while dinner was cooking.  The house was quiet and I had a disconcerting realization: no one needed me. Each of my four children was in their own “cave,” doing homework (I hoped), while simultaneously surfing YouTube (unfortunately) and video chatting with friends (perhaps about homework?). 

My job had shifted from being the pilot who transported everyone everywhere, from being asked to fulfill every need, to just making sure everyone was busy doing what he or she was supposed to be doing. My job description had shifted from flying the planes to directing them. I had become an air-traffic controller.  I had to make sure the planes were clean, fueled, de-iced and fully stocked.  I supplied the flight plan while they just had to periodically call in their location and status.  Sometimes the planes would fly off for a few hours, sometimes for days and then for weeks in the summer, when they are parked in Camp Ramah’s hangar in Palmer, Massachusetts. There the planes get a tune up socially, athletically and Judaically. 

I soon learned the best way to bring in the planes: homemade desserts.  When the planes are at the airport in their separate hangars, nothing brings the pilots into the control tower faster than chocolate desserts, such as the Chocolate, Zucchini and Walnut Muffins below. The pilots sit around the tower and discuss each version of the muffins. Are they sweet enough? Do they need more or less walnuts? Their input has always been valuable. They also discuss their trips, where they are going next, whether they found a better route they want to share or give support to a fellow pilot who got a little lost on their last flight.  Sometimes they even want to paint their planes a new color and I assist with that too. 

When they are properly fueled, the planes go off again. As my daughter prepares to go to college next year, I accept that it is time for her to direct her plane to a new airport. She is ready. She has gone through the pilot training program and graduated with honors. 

Soon the planes are ready to fly off again. They submit new flight plans for approval. I fill out the paperwork and I stand in the control tower and watch the jets go off on their separate ways, marveling at how independent they are. Off they go, until the next batch of muffins.

Chocolate, Zucchini and Walnut Muffins

makes 18 muffins

These muffins are healthy enough for breakfast. They have whole grain flour, a vegetable and protein from the walnuts. You really do not even have to tell anyone that there is zucchini inside as they will never know; the zucchini strands melt into the batter when baked and just add moistness to the muffins.

1 1/3 cups white whole-wheat flour

1 ½ cups sugar

1 cup dark unsweetened cocoa

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup orange juice (no pulp)

1/3 cup canola oil

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1/3 cup boiling water

¾ cup shredded zucchini (from about 6 ounces zucchini), unpeeled, shredded on the small holes of a box grater

1 ½ cups walnut halves, chopped into ½ inch pieces, and ¼ cup chopped walnuts separated out to sprinkle on top

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Place paper cups in muffin tins for 17 muffins. 

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the orange juice, oil, vanilla, eggs, and boiling water and first stir with a silicone spatula (so water does not splatter) and then use the mixer to mix for one minute, until everything is thoroughly combined, scraping down the bowl as needed.  Add the shredded zucchini and mix in well to distribute.  Add the walnuts and mix in. 

Use a 1/3 cup measuring cup to scoop up batter and divide among the 18 cups, filling no more than ¾ full. Bake for 30 - 33 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan and then turn muffins out onto a rack to cool to room temperature.  Store covered at room temperature for up to 5 days or freeze for up to three months.

The Chanukah Splurge

When you put a cookbook out into the world you hear from a lot of people you do not know. A new bride once wrote that my recipes reminded her of desserts made by her grandmothers, but that sadly they had passed away before she could write down their recipes. The Kosher Baker had helped her honor their memory. Others tell me that they are the best bakers in their communities, but that one of my recipes didn’t succeed. I always write back and ask questions to get to the bottom of the problem.  Often the culprits are extra large eggs when the recipe calls for large eggs, or that they took the liberty of making three changes to the recipe and were surprised that it didn’t work. 

One complaint I have taken seriously is from people who want to avoid parve margarine in their dairy-free desserts. As a parve baker, I often use margarine, not the healthiest ingredient. I cannot live without it to make fabulous piecrust, shortbread and pastry cream. Oil just isn’t always a perfect substitute. My grandma Sylvia lived until age 98 and she baked with trans-fat margarine. I cannot make everyone happy; no writer can.

I am writing to tell you that I hear you. My new book, The Holiday Kosher Baker (Sterling 2013), shows that I am moving in the healthier dessert direction. The new recipes use more whole grain flours, less sugar and less margarine.  I became so disgusted with the medicinal taste of sugar substitutes that I avoided them altogether.  

Notwithstanding this evolution, I stand by my mantra that a healthy diet can include desserts, especially homemade ones. Yes, if you eat the entire loaf of chocolate babka (I know who you are), then yes, that is consuming way too much margarine. But if you stick to one serving, and I repeat, one serving, then you will not become overweight on the basis of the babka alone. I have already shared on this blog my tactic of the Three S’s: sweat, salad and Spanx, which together allow me to taste the enormous quantity of desserts I produce without becoming a rotund pastry chef.   

Chanukah comes just once a year. This week I am eating my latkes followed by sopapillas (recipe below), delicious fried dough triangles topped with honey, sugar and cinnamon. I still plan to still fit into my gown for my twins’ bar mitzvah party in four weeks and I will even buy a new pair of Spanx for the occasion. 

Postscript: If you want a healthier dessert this Chanukah, go to my posting at www.kosherscoop.com for instructions on how to bake rather than fry doughnut holes and to see my recipe for cinnamon doughnut holes with a caramel dipping sauce.  

Sopapillas

Sopapillas are common in Central and South America and are pieces of dough that puff up when fried. I first tasted them slathered with honey and powdered sugar on a trip to Sedona, Arizona. Sopapillas are a nice change from doughnuts 

and as each piece is smaller than a typical doughnut, I feel that I am satisfying my fried dessert fix with a smaller portion. 

Serves 8

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening

¾ cups soymilk or water

2-3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar

3 tablespoons honey

¼ - ½ teaspoon cinnamon

canola oil for frying

Place the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and mix with a dough hook for a few seconds. Add the shortening and soymilk or water. Mix until the dough comes together into a ball, scraping the dough off the hook a few times and turning it over, until the dough is smooth. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 20 minutes. 

Heat 1½ inches of oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat and use a candy thermometer to see when the oil temperature hovers around 375°F. 

Sprinkle some flour on a large piece of parchment paper and use a rolling pin to roll out the dough until thin. You can cut the dough into any shapes you like. I cut 3-inch wide strips and then cut each strip into squares. I cut each square into two triangles. I used a fluted pastry wheel to add the pretty ridges to the edges of the triangles.

Place a wire rack over a large cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil. When the oil temperature is ready, fry six triangles at a time until golden, about 1¼ to 1½ minutes per side. Use a slotted spoon to lift up the sopapillas, allowing the excess oil to drip off, and place on the wire rack to cool. Make sure the oil temperature returns to 375°F before you add the next batch. Sometimes I have to lower the flame and wait a few minutes until the temperature cools to 375°F.

To serve, drizzle honey over the sopapillas and use a sieve to dust generously with the confectioners’ sugar. Sprinkle cinnamon on top and enjoy. Store covered at room temperature for up to two days. May be reheated.

Summer Freeze

I met my first ice cream machine last summer when I walked onto the set of Food Network’s dessert show, Sweet Genius.  Call me crazy, but yes, I made my first ever batch of homemade ice cream in front of millions of people.  Sadly, my rosemary ginger ice cream did not make it onto my plate and Judge Ron Ben-Israel never got to taste it.  I survived that round anyway and decided then and there that it was time to master ice cream. 

When you’re a pastry chef, you try to save some desserts for eating out.  It is disheartening to read a dessert menu and see a list of desserts you make on a regular basis.  Until last year I saved ice cream for eating out, and would treat myself only when I was at the beach, a restaurant that had an interesting flavor, in Europe or at Rondeau’s Dairy Bar in Palmer, Massachusetts, just up the road from Camp Ramah. Yet now that I make ice cream, I am running out of desserts to order when I am out.  Given how much sugar I have to eat in my line of work, perhaps that is not such a bad outcome. 

Last week at the Fancy Food Show in Washington, DC, among the multitude of razor thin crackers, flavored sodas, goat milk caramels and infinite tea companies there were many ice cream companies promoting all kinds of whacky ice cream flavors.   To date, the strangest frozen treat I have made is avocado sorbet, for which my kids still mock me.  Beer ice cream was also a dud because the beer flavor was completely obscured by the vanilla. 

At the food show, I found Chozen ice cream, which has flavors such as chocolate babka swirl (yummy) and ronne’s rugelach, and new dairy-free ones such as heavenly halvah and coffee talk.  Moorenko, a local company that produces ice cream minutes from my house, has flavors such as rice pudding and fresh ginger, and they expect to receive kosher certification later this year. 

I tasted Coconut Bliss's delicious ice cream which is entirely dairy-free and uses coconut milk rather than milk and cream.  That gave me an idea.  I have wanted to attempt parve ice cream for a while and was considering using parve whipping cream and soymilk.  Coconut milk is a healthier and tastier option.  You will not believe how creamy this ice cream is and you will swear that it is dairy.  It reminds me of eating coconut ice cream pops on the beach in Tel Aviv many years ago. 

I tried several ice cream-making methods before I bought the cookbook, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home.  Jeni’s method uses cream cheese, a little corn syrup and cornstarch to thicken her ice creams rather than eggs.  Her method does, however, require the use of two whisks, two silicone spatulas, at least three bowls and sometimes two saucepans.  The instructions are easy to follow and the result is spectacular and creamy ice cream with deep flavors.  The chocolate coconut ice cream below was a bit hard to scoop when I took it out of the freezer,  but after a few minutes it softened perfectly.  Happy Summer!

I use the Cuisinart ICE-50BC Supreme Ice Cream Maker.  They also make a duo machine that makes two flavors simultaneously and a new model that has a setting for gelato.

Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream

Makes one quart

Chocolate Mixture

½ cup unsweetened cocoa

½ cup water

½ cup sugar

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate

Coconut Ice Cream Base

3 cups coconut milk, the thick, white creamy kind

1 tablespoon cornstarch

3 tablespoons soy cream cheese

1/8 teaspoon salt

½ cup sugar

2 tablespoons corn syrup

Place the cocoa, water, and ½ cup sugar into a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat and whisk well.  Turn heat to medium low and cook for one minute, whisking often.  Remove from heat and add the chopped chocolate.  Let sit for 5 minutes.  Whisk well.

Place the cream cheese and salt into a medium bowl and use a silicone spatula to mix blend together.

In a small bowl, place the cornstarch.  Measure two tablespoons of coconut milk out of the three cups and add to the cornstarch.  Mix well and set aside.

Set up a large mixing bowl with about 3-4 cups ice cubes and 2-3 cups water.  Have a gallon freezer bag ready for the ice cream.

Place the coconut milk, sugar and corn syrup into a small saucepan and heat over medium high heat until boiling.  Turn heat down to medium low and cook for three minutes, whisking often.  Remove from heat and turn heat down to low.  Add the cornstarch mixture to the saucepan and stir.  Place back on the heat over medium low and cook for two minutes, until mixture thickens.

Remove from heat and add about ½ cup of the hot mixture to the chocolate mixture and whisk well.  Add another ½ cup and whisk in.  Pour in the remaining mixture and whisk well.  Pour into the gallon freezer bag, squeeze out the extra air, seal and let chill in the water bath for 30 minutes, adding more ice if it all melts.

Pour into the chilled container of your ice cream machine and spin and freeze until thick and creamy and the machine stops spinning. Chill for 3-4 hours.