Greenstein's Bakery - Baking Bible - Lemon Jammies!

ב''ה

I actually really liked these. I thought they were really delish!

I missed the Sunday opportunity to bake so I ended up doing it at night after work when it was, uh, bedtime (over the course of three evenings). The deal was, you get in your Jammies, you can have a Jammie.

 Not sure why this was the only cookie cutter that seems to be over 2"

mMcgyver-ed a heart out of a paper clip. 

I did not have any butter so we made these parve. Hooray! I get to use the real oven! :)

Yummy cookies!

As my daughter says, "Look, a hawt!"

I messed up the first batch of corn syrup and sugar.  I actually used some Lyol's Golden syrup that I found.

The first batch got to harder candy stage and got hard and chewy.

I made a second batch of the sugar/corn syrup and this time, it was O.K.

Greenstein's Bakery - Baking Bible - The Polish Princess

ב''ה

I had high expectations for this cake. I made it over three work nights. It was a lot of work for tired evenings and frankly, I'm a bit disappointed with the end result when the parts were all put together. I would have enjoyed it much more had it been the obviously fabulous sponge cake on its own with a big dollop of the delicious pastry cream on the side.

Mis en place.

Moral support.

Before the yolks.

 Cake batter ready.

 Toaster shot.

 Decided to soak the raisins in the vodka. Honestly it did not help. I still did not enjoy them in the cake.

Baked sponge cake and toasted walnuts.

 I do want to make this cake again. Non vodka-soggy.

 Vodka soggy...

 Starting the pastry-cream.

 Its lovely.

 I like this plastic wrap trick. I so want to just eat this with a spoon.

Butter was too cold. I wish it would say "bring to room temp" instead of some number that make my eyes glaze-over.

I thought this part was going to be great...

I rushed the last part since I was trying to get it in before the mid-week round up. No such luck.

The layers did not set properly and now I'm left with a big messy cake that does not taste as good as I thought it would.

When I took the spring pan off early. Honestly, the next day it was still just as drippy.

Greenstein's Bakery - Dattelkonfekkt - Passover Recipe - Baking Bible

ב''ה

For those who don't know what chamtez is and why I had to clean my house top-to-bottom looking for every last bread crumb/pretzel stuffed underneath the furniture. Then, completely replace all the pots plates and cooking and eating utensils. You can read up here.

Obviously we left out the bottom oblaten cookies from this recipe as they would have been "chametz!" :) 

These did not seem so great at first. The are rather chewy and bland at first bite. However, they have a very nice aftertaste and I now have a bit of an addiction.

Altz en Platzen 

Ground almonds.

Dates

Ground together.

Silky but no soft peaks. At this point I said to myself, "I'll trust you on this Rose…"

Mixing.

Spread out on a baking sheet. Next time I'll increase the recipe so as to fill the baking sheet all the way.

Choresh bodem jun, ratatouille, chicken soup with chicken balls (no matzo balls since we don't wet our matzah "gebroks".)

Hey, who's Passover kitchen do you think this is?

A sheet cookie. Very sticky.

All the sticky stuff that stuck to the knife I rolled into balls.

Matzah Pizza with the leftover matzah has become a family tradition. No, I did not bake my own matzah in our home oven as the laws can get rather complex and I want to make sure it is actually kosher and not "chametz" when we eat it. We eat only the hand-made "shmura" matzah. It was about $25 lb this year and our family eats about 10 lb over the holiday (although we found some for much less at Costco, G-d bless them.)

So, I put them back in the oven to crisp up a bit but I think I may prefer them softer.

Now Passover ended Yesterday so, if you will excuse me, I have to redo my kitchen again to put it back the way it was…