creative jewish mom

Simple Flowers And Leaves Decorated Challah

I am rushing to post this as there is still cooking to be done for the holiday of Shavuot, which we are welcoming tonight! Round braided challahs decorated with simple flowers and leaves really do make your holiday table special, so if you have a few extra minutes, give it a try, even for just one challah! This design is quite simple to make, and if you follow the instructions, I do think you'll be happy with the results! Trust me, I've been doing this for years, with varied results, and this design actually looks good after baking as well, which many just do not. So make some round braided challahs using my 4 strand round challah tutorial, set aside a grapefruit sized piece for the decorations, and keep on reading!

Flower Covered Challah For Shavuot!

We are welcoming the beautiful Jewish holiday of Shavuot tonight, and I decided last night that it was time to make some decorated challahs to embrace the holiday, in which we bring flowers and greenery into our homes to remember the lush surroundings on Mt. Sinai. Yes indeed, I did take note of the relative luxury of this act while many of my fellow Israelis were in bomb shelters, and I am grateful to live in a location that is generally not a target, and we have never used the bomb shelter room in our home as such, though I am relieved that we have one! Okay, back to challahs and the upcoming holiday! I love to make round challahs, and they are especially lovely to distinguish a Yom Tov from shabbat.....and a four braided challah looks amazing and is so simple to do once you get the hang of it. Check out my four strand round challah, and become a pro, you can do it! Incase you missed it the link is HERE. Regarding the simple flowers that top this challah, keep on reading......

Schlissel Challah Rolls For The Shabbos After Passover!

To honor this special shabbat, namely the first one after Passover in which we traditionally prepare challah in our homes once again, this year I decided to try once again to make some small rolls shaped like keys, which we call schlissel challah. And yippee, at least one was photo perfect enough to share with you. This key shaped challah baking business is not simple as once the dough rises the forms can go in a million directions, and I'm only showing you this one, so don't expect perfection!

And after all, the whole tradition isn't really about the key, or a perfect key for that matter, but rather about the idea that when a Jewish woman makes challah, and makes the appropriate blessing over the dough before it is baked, she is bringing blessings into her home, which has the power to open all kinds of gates!

Do take a look at the traditional key shaped challahs that I have made in previous years to see how I shaped the dough, and then just do smaller versions of that! Wishing you a wonderful shabbos filled with blessings, whether there is a key or not. And if not, why not whip up some fun key napking rings?

10 Benefits of Slow Cooking

Above Left: A cast bronze cholent pot from Germany, circa 1708, with the name of the family embossed on the pot, from the collection of The Jewish Museum, Jerusalem, on loan from the Jewish Museum of New York  Above Right: Bialystock, Poland Nov 20,1932 Bringing pots of shabbos cholent to a baker’s oven on friday afternoon. Photo courtesy of YIVO Polish Jewish archive

Slow cooking is part of a culinary culture that’s been around for centuries, and is in fact a huge part of Jewish culture, and specifically the Shabbat day meal, in Jewish homes around the world. Because cooking and baking are forbidden on Shabbat, special Shabbat dishes are cooked on Friday and kept hot overnight to be eaten on Saturday morning/afternoon. Cholent, (called Hamin or Dafina by Sephardic Jews) a meat stew of sorts simmered overnight, has been eaten on Shabbat in all Jewish communities since the days of the Mishnah. In many cases families would place their pot in a baker’s oven before Shabbat and retrieve it when it was time to eat. Since the oven served the entire community, it was important to identify the owners of each pot, and often their names were engraved on the pot, as seen in the photo above. Today, with the advent of electricity and gas in our homes, we either plug in a warming tray before shabbat, or use a gas flame covered with a sheet of metal on the stove top to slow cook food (that is already 50% cooked before Shabbat) to be eaten the next day. We even have home appliances and electronics for slow cooking like crock pots. They come in different styles and features. Crock pot sizes and compatibility depends on how you want to use it and what fits your daily cooking routine.

Of course, slow cooking can also be employed anytime, as It’s hassle-free and a great way to prepare food the night before or in the morning so you can get home after work, and serve a meal without having to spend hours cooking. Slow-cooked food is rich in flavor and nutrition and because the preparation is ahead time, and likely less rushed, it gives us an excellent opportunity to  actually enjoy the process of making the meal. In this day and age, everything is faster, from our busy lives to the food we eat. Slowing down is great for both our bodies and our minds.

Okay, lets learn some more about how to go about slow cooking and some options for including it in your weekly meal plans!

Chocolate Chip Cookies With Sprinkles For Chanukah Or Any Festivity!

Wishing everyone a lovely light-filled Chanukah on this fourth night of Chanukah. It is pouring cats and dogs here in Northern Israel creating a very dramatic setting for the glowing flames of the holiday. My kids are all snugly tucked in bed with a book so I’m taking a moment to share these fun cookies with you. Courtesy of my teen daughter I might add, who does all the baking......and who baked some more goodies today as we have a small army of guests coming for meals this special upcoming Shabbat!

This idea is pretty self explanatory but keep on reading for a few tips......

Key Shaped Challah

The Ashkenazic Jewish custom of making key shaped bread, or rather challah, (called schlissel challah) for the first shabbos after Passover is something I love to do, though this year on that particular shabbos we were in the Ukraine, so no key shaped challahs.......but then again, since it is a symbolic custom rather than a Jewish Law I figured I'd bake those key shaped challahs the very first time we made challahs at home, which was last Friday. And since my camera battery charger is broken and the replacement has yet to arrive my daughter quickly took some photos to share with you. At this point you may just want to keep this in mind for next year as serving key shaped challahs this shabbos will likely result in some strange looks and/or confusion, but if that doesn't bother you, I say go right ahead and enjoy! Keep on reading for all the links to previous posts with lots of inspiration as far as exactly how to make a key shape!

Today Is The Day To Bake Schlissel Challah!

According to a custom observed by many Jews of Ashkenazic (Eastern European) descent, key shaped challahs are baked the first shabbos after Passover as a symbol of the desire to bring blessings into the home. After the holiday, and the Jewish people's deliverance from slavery, is the time for new beginnings, so it is only fitting that one would want to grace their home with good things, and what can be better than freshly baked challah?

Now, one doesn't have to actually bake challahs shaped like keys, one can also simply place a key (wrapped in aluminum foil) in the bottom of the pan, or under the braided loaf, but in our house the key shaped challahs are certainly more interesting. I have baked large challah keys, medium sized keys and even small keys, and even whole wheat challah keys, and speaking from experience and the desire for the key to stay intact, I'd say a medium sized key like this one is the way to go.

Snowglobe Cookies With Royal Icing Make Great Winter Party Favors!

 

How about a big round of applause for my 15 year old daughter on her second attempt ever at royal icing, the outcome being these too adorable for words snowglobe snowman cookies! There is just something so wonderfully irresistible about royal icing, though since I'd rather not spend my creative time baking I'm more than happy to let my daughter have all the fun with this one. Since I'm there in any case I do get to live vicariously......though hoping we can figure out how to do this kind of thing without the huge time investment required, at least until we get to the top of the learning curve. We are learning all about royal icing and getting totally inspired to get really good at it from a lovely online cookine decorating class from brit and co, that I can recommend. Plus winter is a great time to spend learning something new, and especially something you can then use to spread joy all around.

The response when we served these cookies with desert this past shabbat was worth all the effort, though the Israeli born folks at the table aren't all that familiar with snow globes, so it was largely lost on them, nonetheless, the American guests appreciation was enough for the crowd. And as it turned out, we were in the middle of a huge storm, that even included a very nerve wracking power outage on Friday night, so the snowglobe theme fit right in.

Special Grape Leaf Challahs For Tu B'Shevat

Wednesday night is the perfect time to bake delicious homemade challah, and with the special shabbat of Tu B'Shevat coming up this week, how about making your challahs just a little bit special? Well, of course all challah is special, but when you spend a few minutes to add a bit of extra something, well special takes on a whole new meaning! Let's do it, shall we?

Black And White Flower Or Spider Web Icing Trick

Making baked works of art can really be quite simple if you know a few little tricks, right? Courtesy of my 14 year old daughter who I have now appointed as chief family baker, I bring to you a little tutorial for how to make black and white icing flowers or cob webs! While she made black and white flowers on mini doughnuts, one can certainly use this trick on cookies, cupcakes and even cakes.......the results will be truly gorgeous, promise! And doing this on a cake would be so less time consuming than many other types of decorations, so give it a try, I'm going to encourage my daughter to do so as well sometime soon, and will share the results, of course. (Well assuming there is time to photograph the results, that isn't always possible, as you can well imagine.)

One disclaimer, we are not professional bakers, and certainly not specialists when it comes to making icing with dairy ingredients as almost all of our baking is for items that will be eaten on shabbat after a meat meal, and thus cannot contain any dairy products. So I will provide you with the icing recipe we used, but there are likely many more options out there that may be more suited to your needs.