Month: April 2013

Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Kosher for Passover Italian Style Cookies

Posted by | Apr 7, 2013 | |

Growing up in New Jersey meant Italian bakeries with the most fantastic artificially colored almond cookies with jelly on the inside and chocolate swizzles on the outside. Wnen I moved to Chicago these were still a treat to be enjoyed at parties where someone went to the italian bakery and brought a tray. But with my gluten-free, dairy-free, corn-free life, I never remotely expected to eat those cookies again. Leave it to an orthodox kosher bakery located in an Italian neighborhood in New Jersey to replicate a fantastic gluten, dairy, and corn free version of the cookies. Oberlander’s Bakery makes all the cookies I grew up with every year for Passover and yet they make them gluten, dairy, corn and soy free. They do have nuts, eggs and food dye so they are not for everyone. They are not remotely paleo or healthy, but if you can otherwise never ever eat these cookies, they are great and they do not taste gluten-free or “kosher for Passover”. They taste like what you would expect from the finest Italian bakeries. I don’t know if they ever make them in the off-season but next year I know that I plan to find a way to get my hands on as many boxes as I can and freeze them. Currently my pantry looks like it is inhabited by an Orthodox Jewish family of...

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The Best Kosher for Passover Chocolate Cake Mix

Posted by | Apr 4, 2013 | , , |

I am a woman who is very grateful for Passover with its bounty of gluten-free and dairy-free treats. Most gluten-free cake mixes use rice flour which is tricky to cook with as it tends to absorb flavors, requiring what always seems like an insane amount of vanilla extract. The potato-starch based passover mixes have the opposite effect. A small amount of flavoring leads to a big impact on the final result. So after years of stocking up on the same brand, I thought that I should run a bake off and see which company really does make the best kosher for passover chocolate frosted cake. So for Easter dinner this year we had the Gluten-Free Kosher for Passover bake-off. Yes, it is ironic. One word of warning for those of you who cannot tolerate eggs. Passover is a holiday where leavening is frowned upon. Only yeast is forbidden, but baking soda / powder is used sparingly. These cakes get a lot of their lift from the rather long time that the eggs are beaten (four to six minutes on medium…seriously). You probably can use egg replacer, just know that you will definitely have to add more leavening to the mix. I decided to test three brands, Manischewitz, Streit’s and Gefen. Each mix made one single layer chocolate cake that probably serves about six people as long as none of...

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Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Nut-Free Soy-Free Donut Holes

Posted by | Apr 4, 2013 | |

In honor of Dr Seuss’ birthday my son’s school had a little coffee and donut hole party. Guess what we can’t find easily. Gluten-free donut holes. Now I am not a huge donut hole person, but I was also unwilling to just bring in something else. I hate doing that, it feels too much like giving up. The donut holes were such a hit that his godmother did them again with him the next day. So we tried this two different ways with different flavors from different food companies. The trick to the recipe is using cake pop molds. If you use the machine, you get true cake pops that do not have that “fried” outer coating because the machine has a non-stick coating which the shortening does not adhere to. So without further ado, here is the recipe Ingredients 1 box allergen free cake mix (do not use a kosher for passover mix here) Flavorings and other ingredients needed to make cupcakes per the mix (or you can use your own recipe). Solid shortening or palm oil Equipment Electric mixer Measuring cups and spoons Silicone Cake pop molds (avoid a cake pop machine) A cookie sheet or 9 x 13 pan Spoon for measuring batter Spatula Instructions Prepare and flavor cake mix batter according to instructions I added lemon zest and lemon extract to this batch. Preheat oven...

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