Passover, Seder, and Jesus

My mom is Jewish, which makes me Jewish. I was raised Baptist. (Single mom working nights + great babysitters)

That said, I have fond memories of the Efromson family Seder here in Indianapolis and that one Passover at my Grandparents where some punk kid cut me in line as we searched for the hidden matza. I think I was 3 or 4 years old, and if I remember correctly earlier that evening I switched places with my uncle and took a HUGE gulp of wine, promptly spitting it out all over my grandmother’s good white linens.... everyone got a good laugh, but me.

This year we celebrated Easter with a Friday night Seder. It was a last minute brainstorm, complete with my mom franticly searching for my grandfather’s Haggadah (Reformed Judaism, sort of the non-denominational liberal-ish arm of Judaism from what I understand ... remember I was raised Baptist) She couldn't find the book, which was most likely subject to one of her "donation" sprees where big black trash bags full of "donations" end up in the garbage cans of local apartment complexes.

Luckily, I had saved a silver-covered traditional Haggadah complete with photos of odd looking little chubby men.

Now, back to the cooking. I had seen an article on Bon Appetite’s email newsletter "An Elegant Passover Menu for 6" which included an interesting recipe for Matzo Ball Soup. The fish and fancy salad they had listed didn’t really fit my... style. So, I searched a bit further on Bon Appetite’s site and found a REALLY awesome Gillette Fish recipe using Halibut (ps Halibut is NOT cheap). Armed with printouts of the recipes I headed to Meijer.

I found everything but lemon grass and a food processor (for the Torte, so I swapped it out for a NOT kosher leavened 4 layer lemon curd cake).

That night I made the fish… it was an interesting experience. Hobo Packets + expensive ingredients. This fish needed to be cooked the night before, cooled, and then refrigerated until served. I looked really good, and it smelled even better (everyone said they would have preferred it warm). Halibut with Carrots, Fennel, Lemon, and Garlic

The next day I headed to the International grocery to fetch lemon grass. I had a BIG day ahead of me, homemade chicken broth, a 4-tiered cake, finding the Haggadah (which I didn’t think of until 30 minutes before people were to arrive).

Somehow I pulled it off… but next year we are going to need a new Haggadah with post-its on the questions (our family’s favorite part).

Luckily, Uncle Dave has already ordered a Children’s Haggadah which is perfect, and doubles as a coloring book. I think we will order enough for everyone to have their own.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I promised my Uncle Dave I would make him some cupcakes for his 65th birthday on Thursday but, I thought I better do a test batch this weekend just to be sure they aren't terrible.

As I was trolling the aisles of the local Kroger today, I almost bought a Carrot Cake Mix... until the phrase "Carrot Flavored Pieces" quickly lead me to return it to the shelf (as did my sister, who was on the phone telling me I had to make them from scratch). So, instead of buying a mix, I used my Cooks Illustrated iPhone app (FREE!) to look for a carrot cake recipe. Luckily, it turned out that I already had all the ingredients I needed at home.

I started baking "process" as soon as I got home, by shredding the carrots in my stand-up food processor (warning: carrot juice will stain your white plastic kitchen gadgets, but I found Mr. Clean Magic Eraser works wonders on this).  After shredding the carrots, I hauled out my full sized food processor to combine/fluff the eggs and sugar.  I was kind of surprised the recipe called for a FP ... but the bottom of the recipe had directions for using the Stand Mixer.

By this point, it looked like an orange tornado had cut a path right through our previously clean kitchen.

Once the mix was prepared I quickly tried to look up a method to calculate the proper time for cupcakes (vs sheet cake), gave up and guessed at 15min (it took 20).

Three batches of cupcakes later it was time to start the icing.  It seemed to go well at first, and after following the directions I added a VIA instant decaf coffee packet for an extra kick -- (Dave's party is going to be a Starbucks and the SB manager suggested trying the VIA in the icing). It tasted DELICIOUS and after just one more minute whisking it was supposed to be light and fluffy and ready to decorate.  That is, until I turned around to straighten up the kitchen and left the icing whisking in the mixer....

With in just a few minutes it looked curdled and I was devastated.... luckily, I happened to stock up on cream cheese last week (it was on sale) and I had JUST enough powdered sugar left for another batch. Unfortunately though, I couldn't risk using the last two VIA packets - since I still needed those for the birthday party batch.

I decided to try piping the frosting which went ok, but next time I'm going to use the larger tip so I can get a larger dollop of icing on each cupcake (and to avoid clogging).

In the end it was a lot of work, some of which was unnecessary, but overall, the cupcakes were delicious, spicy, and had great texture.

Spiced Carrot Cake by Cooks Illustrated - http://tiny.cc/carrotbd

Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake

I was craving a delicious Chocolate desert, and so I turned to my Cooks Illustrated books and found this tasty treat. https://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/4958-triple-chocolate-mousse-cake

Note: That is a Steak n' Shake plate. (not I did not steal it)

Leaning Tower of .... Lemon Cake?

July 4th weekend is full of pitch-ins with the family. This 4th of July, Jordan and I were invited to a family flag raising to honor his Grandpa & Grandma Whitt who served in WWII and Grandpa Thompson who served during the Korean War. We were asked to bring a desert and side dish -- so I went all out and used this opportunity to try a cake recipe from cooksillustrated.com. It took approximately 7 hours from start to finish ... and was worth it!

Lemon Layer Cake -- doesn't it just look like heaven... Until you see the recipe -- There are 3 parts to the recipe. 1) Lemon Curd - Filling 2) Cake Batter 3) Icing Then you must carefully assemble the entire thing.

The Lemon Curd - Filling went pretty well, the Cake Batter was fun to mix (and would have gone a bit quicker if I had pulled out the milk and eggs ahead of time so they could have been at room temperature when I wanted to get started. I was going to wait until Saturday morning to assemble and make the icing - but since we happened to be up till 2 am watching a redbox movie I thought - what the hell, I'll give it a go. . . big mistake.

I had never cut a cake in half (horizontally) but I had my big tupperware bread knife ready to go. While I butchered the first one making the bottom layer only 1/4 an inch thick, the second cake went much better. I decided to put the tiny layer near the top and began assembly. The first two layers went together without a problem...but then came the butchered layer -- and well it seemed to go ok, so I added the rest of the filling and the final layer of cake.


I was rinsing dishes when Jordan walked in to admire my work .... he then kindly let me know it was falling apart -- I shot him a dirty look and told him it was fine... fine until he pointed out that the third layer had torn in half and was sliding down and it wasn't just a bit of lemon curd oozing out of the layers like I had assumed. I grabbed the cake at the sides and shoved the layer back in place while frantically yelling at Jordan to grab the "stick thingies" (skewers) out of the top left drawer. We were both laughing uncontrollably but he some how managed to find the sticks -- and then, of course, he insisted on snapping a photo before (much to my chagrin) jabbing them in the middle of the cake. Needless to say, I then asked him to move them to the edges to help hold the cake in place.

I decided that was enough and to put the cake in the fridge for the night so I could just deal with it in the morning. Luckily, it was all in one piece. I still needed to make the Icing -- which seemed like it was going well until I realized I had used 2 large eggs and not 2 large egg whites and had to start over. The second batch tasted delicious! I iced the cake hiding any drooping layers and carefully loaded it into the car. Some how it made it all the way to Grandma & Grandpa Whitt's with out falling apart or touching the glass lid.

http://tiny.cc/lemoncake2

editor's note: besides jabbing the sticks in the middle of the cake, I did make some positive contribution by squeezing the lemons for the filling and creating a crapton of lemon zest (which Jennie totally forgot to use). Just wanted to point out that I'm not completely worthless :)