Delicious Passover Desserts from The Kosher Baker
Pastry chef, cookbook author and teacher, Paula Shoyer, creates delectable kosher Passover desserts that everyone will love.
by Paula Shoyer
Passover is one of the most important holidays of the Jewish calendar and is when families get together for the Seder meal. Passover baking is the greatest annual challenge in the Jewish kitchen because Passover dessert recipes cannot use flour, yeast, soy milk, or even pure vanilla, and shifting from flour to matzoh cake meal and potato starch is not intuitive, even for experienced bakers. As dessert plays an important part of the Seder meal, you need fabulous desserts to end your evening. This Passover, pastry chef and teacher, Paula Shoyer, shares delicious and easy Passover desserts from her best-selling cookbook, The Kosher Baker.
Producing flavorful and appealing desserts that are kosher has been a challenge for Jewish cooks. Without access to butter, cream, milk, cheese, yogurt, or other dairy products, creating a delicious and memorable dessert for holiday meals requires more than simple substitutions and compromises. Paris-trained pastry chef, Paula Shoyer decided to change that. Using all her creativity and love of dessert, she developed The Kosher Baker, the indispensable kitchen companion providing a wide range of dairy-free desserts, from family favorites and time-honored holiday classics to stylish and delicious surprises of Paula’s own creation.
Ingredients for Marble Chocolate Matzoh
Serves 12
1/3 cup slivered almonds
10 ounces parve dark bittersweet chocolate, chopped or broken into 1-inch pieces
1/3 cup parve white chocolate chips
3 large or 4 small pieces of matzoh
Directions to Make this Passover Dessert
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a jelly roll pan with parchment. Spread the almonds on the pan and toast for 15 minutes, stirring the nuts after 10 minutes. When the almonds are toasted, remove the pan from the oven and slide the parchment off the cookie sheet.
While the nuts are toasting, melt the dark chocolate in one heatproof bowl and the white chocolate in another. You can do this either on the stovetop in a double boiler or in the microwave. If you use the microwave method, be especially careful with the white chocolate chips so they do not burn.
When the almonds are toasted, use a large knife to roughly chop them into pieces about 1/3 of their original size. Mix the nuts into the melted dark chocolate.
Line 1 large or 2 smaller cookie sheets with waxed paper and place the matzohs on top of the waxed paper. Spread the dark chocolate and nut mixture all over the matzoh slices to cover them entirely on one side with the chocolate.
Drop clumps of the melted white chocolate randomly on top of the dark chocolate. Use a toothpick to swirl the chocolates to create a marble effect. Place in the refrigerator to set for 1 hour and then break into pieces to serve. Store in the refrigerator for six days or freeze for up to three months.
Paula guides home cooks through more than 160 mouth-watering recipes and expands every non-dairy baker’s repertoire with simple, clear instructions and a friendly yet authoritative voice. You don’t have to be Jewish, or even keep kosher, to love Paula’s recipes.
