Savvima Review & Giveaway of “The Kosher Baker – Over 160 Dairy-Free Recipes from Traditional to Trendy”
December 9th, 2010 Print
This post features:
- A Savvima review of The Kosher Baker by Paula Shoyer.
- A chance to win a free copy of The Kosher Baker by Paula Shoyer!
The opportunity to review Paula Shoyer’s debut cookbook, The Kosher Baker – Over 160 Dairy-Free Recipes from Traditional to Trendy, had me on a sugar high. The luscious photographs and tempting recipe titles made it nearly impossible to compose a review with a critical eye. And judging by the recipes I tested, they taste as good as they look.
Since meat is served at most Jewish holiday and Shabbos meals, desserts laden with dairy ingredients such as butter and cream just won’t cut it. Enter Paula and The Kosher Baker with an amazing array of parve desserts perfectly suited to the kosher baker.
Even if the concept of parve baking isn’t a novelty to you, then the specialties in The Kosher Baker definitely will be. And while Paula declares “The age of the kichel and rainbow-colored sponge cake is officially over,” I’m glad she included many traditional Jewish desserts such as hamentaschen, babka, and challah.
A kosher cookbook like this which offers recipes for Scones Au Chocolat and Salted Chocolate Caramel Tarts is a gentle nudge to kosher bake shops to step up their selection to include more fashion forward baked goods.
Since The Kosher Baker is organized into categories, “Quick and Elegant, “Two-Step,” and “Multiple-Step” desserts, those who live on the edge, and don’t heed the standard advice of reading through a recipe before starting, won’t get stuck with a dessert which needs to chill overnight when it’s an hour to Shabbos.
Part One of The Kosher Baker is comprised of mostly one-bowl desserts ready to be baked in about 15 minutes or less. This section is not just geared toward the novice, but is a great place to start if you’re preparing multiple desserts for a party or Yom Tov or you’re simply pressed for time. Pistachio Financiers certainly gives the illusion of an upscale pastry while being simple to prepare. Summer Fruit Triangles sounds like the perfect recipe to whip up last-minute.
The recipes found in Part Two of the book have 2-steps and require 15-30 minutes to prepare. These are perfect for the more experienced baker. We tried the Challah Beer Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce which combines sweet bread, beer, and caramel for a delightful warm dessert perfect for Friday night (served with a scoop of parve ice cream of course!).
Part Three is filled with multiple-step desserts that Paula refers to as her “designer collection.” Preparing one of these desserts will make you feel like a million bucks when you serve it to your dinner guests. Most seem doable, they simply require advance planning (for overnight chilling, dough rising time, etc.). Cinnamon, Vanilla, and Raspberry Macaroons, Chocolate Mousse Truffle Cake, and Babka Cupcakes with Crumb Topping all have my heart beating a bit faster.
Part Four is an excellent resource of Passover recipes and no-sugar-added desserts (perfect for the guest with special diet needs). Throughout the cookbook gluten-free recipes are marked as such and work well for Passover too.
The appendix lists a nice selection of versatile sauces and frostings as well.
Paula provides great advice on storage, freezing, and thawing in addition to must-have tools and various practical tips and techniques. She lists staple baking ingredients and gives us her brand preferences too. Some recipes include step-by-step photos of preparation and assembly which are a real help, especially for the beginner baker.
While some cookbooks boast images of every recipe, Paula has opted to include more recipes with less photos resulting in a comprehensive baking bible. There’s even a rendition of the Ten Commandments (of baking that is).
So whether you crave dairy desserts, are on a dairy-free diet, or you are already accustomed to parve baking, Paula Shoyer’s The Kosher Baker may very well become your go-to source for kosher baking.
Paula Shoyer is the owner of Paula’s Parisian Cooking School in Maryland, received her pastry diploma from the Ritz Escoffier Ecole de Gastronomie Francaise in Paris and was the editor of Susie Fishbein’s Kosher by Design Entertains and Kosher by Design Kids in the Kitchen cookbooks. She is also an attorney and speechwriter.
To purchase The Kosher Baker please click here.
To be entered to win a free copy of The Kosher Baker, leave a comment below before Thursday, December 16, describing your worst baking mishap, flop, or fiasco. The more details the better! The best response will be chosen as the winner!
UPDATE: Congratulations to Jennifer Stein!!
Here’s Jennifer’s baking disaster, in her own words:
“…Funniest baking story had to be the first time I baked challah—-
Newlywed me got a recipe from my best friend ( 5 lb. flour and all….)
when I called her to find out why the challah keeps rising and is gettting too big in the oven, she was surprised to find out that i needed her to tell me that one recipe was not for one CHALLAH….!!!! That was the biggest challah ever!!!!!
Thanks to everyone else for sharing their darker baking moments. Its good to know we all mess up once in a while!
I always have a hard time finding fun desserts without dairy! This would be great!
I’m looking for more parve recipes that includes fruits to make it nutritious. I have too many frozen loaves of Banana Bread with parve chocolate chips.
When I was seven I was determined to bake all by myself. I made sugar cookies. Instead of 1 teaspoon salt I added 1 cup! The cookies were beautiful to look at but they tasted like the Dead Sea! I give credit to my siblings and parents who happily tasted them anyway
i have baked maybe 4 times in my life! cooking is more my thing cuz its just easier and u dnt have to follow exact instructions to get the dish just rite! but with baking is different but still recently i have started to bake dessert for shabbos, every week something else. so far so good!
but i did have my share of bad baking experiences…. i once hosted a family party and made a chocolate glazed marble cake. it was getting late and i was trying to work fast. i put the cake in the oven on 350, when i took the cake out of the bundt it was all black and hard, looked burned to me! i looked in the book and saw that i was supposed to bake it on 325!!! i glazed the cake anyways and put it out as is! lets just say im thankful till this day the cake was never cut up, once everyone left i quickly shoved it in the nearest bin!!!!
As a teen,, the only pie I was able to make successfully was a pecan pie. I made pecan pies in gas ovens and electric ovens and they always came out perfectly. So when I went off to college, I volunteered to make the pie for our dorm’s thanksgiving dinner. I confidently mixed together the ingredients and popped it into the oven, set the timer then went off to do some other chore. Since I was such an “expert” I didn’t feel the need to check on the pie during baking. At the usual correct time I returned, opened the oven and, through the smoke that billowed out, I discovered the charred remains of what was supposed to be dessert. Subsequent testing with an oven thermometer later on showed that the oven’s gauge was a tad off … and by “tad” I mean by 100 degrees!
Firstly let me say that as a cookbook junkie I just made a resolution not to purchase anymore cookbooks, but this one seems like a must!!!
Now for my dessert mishap…..about 18 years ago I was part of a committee organizing a womans luncheon. Most of the food was purchased but we figured we would make a chocolate mousse for the middle of every table.
I had this great recipe that for some reason to keep to the budget I figured I would substitute pareve milk for the whipping cream.
Let’s just say there was a larrge bowl of chocolate soup in the middle of evry table!
I’m considered a great baker, so I usually offer to send over a cake for. Different occasions. One Friday I double a crumbcake recipe which I hadn’t made in years to send to 2 new mothers and to have for us for shabbos.
Boy did I learn my lesson to stick with what I know! Somehow I’m still not sure why ,but Shabbos morning when we cut into the cake, I was horrified the cake was like rubbEr.
To keep reputation the next Shabbos I sent another cake with a note
I love your idea of a followup cake…. Brilliant!
I love to cook but baking was just never my thing! what started out as a huge baking mishap over time became something that I enjoyed doing! Baking for me used to be a chore but now I found recipes that I enjoy….
Looks amazing! I would love to win this cookbook!
wow- challa beer caramel bread pudding?? contains at least 4 of my husband’s fave things. I must have this book! please o please?
When I was 15 I decided to bake my friend a birthday cake and bring it to school the next day. My other friend came over because she wanted to be a part of the excitement also. Ok so not only did we put in too much oil by mistake , but when the cake came out it didn’t just look VERY greasy, it looked funny on top like there was something in the middle of it. The cake didn’t sink in the middle, however as we inspected it we found out the MIXING spoon that we used to mix the batter right smack in the center of the cake ( it was baked into the top) !!!!!!! This happened 10 years ago and I just want to say that I have improved my baking skills and would love this book
One erev Yomtov, with loads to do and not as much energy, I was delegating to various kidlings right and left. When I set up one of them with the ingredients for a yummy cake, I read “apple cider” and gave her apple cider VINEGAR. She asked, “Mom, are you sure this is what I’m supposed to use?” I reassured her that it was, she prepared the batter, said, “Yum this smells delish!” Luckily she snuck a taste of the batter before pouring it into the pan. Yikes!
We tried adding tons of sugar but it just tasted sweet and sour. Oh well.
Served cholent and home-made kishka for Shabbos. My friend (who I’d known since we were both 9) took a big bite, then spit it right out, saying “This is awful!” After she downed lots of water and challah, I had a flashback to preparing said kishka.
I saw my hand reach for the Costco sized container of paprika, and realized that no… it was a Costco sized container of hot pepper.
The kishka was beyond hot. It was inedible…
Accidentally rolled the chanukah donuts in salt and cinnamon instead of sugar and cinnamon –eech!
Put up eggs to boil, way back when…dozed off on the couch…woke up to a loud pop…the water had evaporated and the eggs popped out of the pot onto the ceiling…but that was way back when
)
My worst baking mishap? Gluten-free challah. Sigh. It tasted like sand and was hard as a rock. No more, no less.
Not so exciting a mishap, but I grabbed the baking side instead of baking powder while making waffles for my kids a couple of weeks ago. talk about inedible!
My 4 year old was so disappointed…and I just didn’t have the patience to make another batch.
Thank goodness for frozen!
I have a slight tendency to procrastinate. With a house full of guests, I was making stuffed onions-I think I also misjudged the time needed for the recipe slightly-and they were still cooking right before Shabbat. I figured, since they only needed a couple more minutes, we’d just turn the oven off and leave them in, they’d finish cooking and still be nice and warm in the morning. It would have worked, except as I went to light candles, running a couple of minutes late, I saw that the oven light was off and thought that someone else in the house had been helpful and switched it off for me. The next morning, I went into the kitchen and discovered that the oven had been on at 350 degrees all night-with the food in. Needless to say, we had charcoal. Thank goodness there was other food!
There was also the night, about a week after Holloween that some friends and I (in college) decided to make pumpkin pie. This was about 10 p.m. So we look up a recipe, cook the pumpkin, and then go to make crust. We realize we don’t have any baking powder. What we do have, however, is Bisquick. Someone points out that Bisquick does have baking powder in it, so we decide to use that for our crust instead of flour. It also, of course, has yeast. The crust rose. It was still edible, though.
When I was younger I wanted to surprise my mother and make her chocolate cake. Everything went fine until the direction of adding some coffee. I ended up using ALOT of
coffee and after it baked the whole house smelled like coffee:) My mother came down
and tried to make a coffee for herself, but strangely we were out of it:) I’ve come along way since then in making chocolate cake:) and we have plenty of coffee to go around just in case my mother pops in:)
funniest baking story had to be the first time I baked challah—-
Newlywed me got a recipe from my best friend ( 5 lb. flour and all….)
when I called her to find out why the challah keeps rising and is gettting too big in the oven, she was surprised to find out that i needed her to tell me that one recipe was not for one CHALLAH….!!!! That was the biggest challah ever!!!!!
Oh- and the time I made the “Orange Roll”- still can’t live that one down!~!!!!
I want this book!!!!
baking apple crumble, sprinkled cinnamon and was ready to bake. Till I realized I had sprinkled paprika instead!!
Once I baked a chocolate Pesach cake and greased the spring form cake pan too liberally, The batter spilled all over the bottom of the over (through the bottom of the pan) and burned. The clean up was awful! I used the cale (left overs in the pan) for a layered trifle with whipped cream and fruits.
I wanted to make a huge cookie instead of reg. size individual cookies. When I poured the batter on the pan it just kept oozing everywhere so I kept adding flour (or at least i thought it was) to thicken it. After giving up I asked my mother to help me and she informed me that I had really been adding icing sugar. Lesson learned= label the tupperware!!!
I had a huge order to prepare tarts, pies and cookies for a synagogue event. I decided to assemble the Strawberry Tarts with Pastry Cream early in the morning- as last minute as you can when you’re baking alone for 100 people. I had carefully baked the tart shells and unmolded them on cardboard bases and prepared the pastry cream the day before. On delivery day, I cored and wiped clean the magnificent huge bright red strawberries I had bought. I smoothed out the pastry cream in the shells and painstakingly arranged the berries so that the tarts looked amazingly beautiful. I put the tarts in the frig and continued to finish preparing and packaging my goodies. I opened the frig to remove the Strawberry Tarts and to my complete horror, the strawberries had deflated and the juice went right through the crust. My pastry cream was pink, my crust was soggy and my strawberries were all wrinkled. I had no time to panic and figure out what had happened and fortunately I had extra pastry cream; so I bought fresh smaller strawberries, made two more pastry shells and started again. I got everything to the synagogue on time and reserved this story for my family and friends.
I am so enjoying everyone’s baking mishaps. Some even sound familiar . . . Even me, The Kosher Baker herself, has had a few and now that I am doing baking demos in other people’s kitchens, you never know what surprises await. Just two hours ago I made mocha macaroons -those French ones– a variation of the recipe in the book and every cookie came out cracked. They are actually delicious, just not so pretty. Should I tell the audience tonight that they did not come out like they are supposed to? Not even sure why!!!! At another event in NYC, I was making the pear and almond tart and they dough was too soft and wouldn’t roll and got stuck to the parchment, etc. I started to cry when my friend Leah came in and, in her zen way, simply scooped the dough up with a spoon and squooshed the dough into the pan using a ton of flour. We filled with the almond cream and pears and baked and prayed. The tarts were still gorgeous and yummy. The ladies of the upper west side never knew what happened. Lesson learned – don’t fret the problem, just figure out the solution.
Thanks Paula!
Sharing our mishaps is quite comforting. We’re all human and we’ve all messed up. The key is not to sweat it
i wanted to surprise my father with rice pudding and i thought i watched my mother put in all the right ingredients, so i put in eggs, sugar, rice and canned peaches, and i baked it, the only thing i forgot to do is cook the rice first. and my father ate it, he must really love me! i dont know how his teeth survived.
Its hard for us here in Israel to get the new Kosher cookbooks and I love to bake!!
when i was in nursery school, i had a friend over and my mother let us “bake” chocolate chip cookies. she put the mixer on the table so we could see into it. the batter was mixing and i leaned over to smell it since CCC are my favorite. unfortunately I did not have my hair tied back with a rubberband and my long hair got tangled up in the mixer and a huge chunk got yanked right out of my head!! it was bleeding and everything! needless to say, i ALWAYS wear my hair back when I bake, even though its a lot shorter!
when i was in nursery school, i had a friend over and my mother let us “bake” chocolate chip cookies. she put the mixer on the table so we could see into it. the batter was mixing and i leaned over to smell it since CCC are my favorite. unfortunately I did not have my hair tied back with a rubberband and my long hair got tangled up in the mixer and a huge chunk got yanked right out of my head!! it was bleeding and everything! needless to say, i ALWAYS wear my hair back when I bake, even though its a lot shorter!
My mother-in-law always said I was a great baker and asked me to make a dessert for Friday night. I decide to make chocolate chip cookies and sandwich them together with ice-cream. I am not sure why but the cookies got a little burnt around the edges and I didn’t have time to make more. I put them all in a plastic ziploc bag and banged it on the counter a few times to break them into chunks. I then mixed up the ice-cream (a pareve homemade one) and stirred in the cookie pieces. Somehow the ice-cream took the burnt taste out of the cookies and everyone LOVED the dessert. The hard thing is reproducing it….
Last week I was trying to make home made graham crackers to make home made smores with my homemade marshmallows. I still don’t know how it happened, I turned the pan so it would bake evenly and then all of a sudden the smoke alarm went off and I opened the oven to burnt cookies (it was a whole day of preparing down the drain), but the worst part was that the smoke wouldn’t go away, the alarm went off every 5 minutes or so for an hour, luckily my kids slept right through it.
I made a three layer cake but each layer came out misshaped. Then I frosted it and the whole thing was lop-sided! But it did taste really good still.
The story my family never lets me forget is this…after being teased mercilessly for producing rock-hard matza balls, blueberry “pie” with a crust that rose up so high the berries spilled out of the pan, I decided I was going to make it right, and really wow them. I made an apple cake from a yeshiva cookbook, the kind that probably doesn’t have too many proofreaders. Not being much of an expert, I simply followed the recipe to the “t”. Suprisingly the cake weighed about a million pounds, and when I went to cut it, it literally squirted oil out. My family couldn’t stop laughing at me…I pulled out the cookbook and showed them that the recipe called for TWO CUPS OF OIL! I didn’t know enough to realize that was too much. I even checked the back of the cookbook where they threw in a page of corrections. No one had corrected that. Years have passed and now my family begs me to bake cakes.
I worked so hard to make a checkerboard cake, and after all that hard work….I forgot to add the sugar to the recipe!
oooh, cooking disasters? i’ve got a bunch! and for a cookbook, ill endure the humiliation of recalling them
well, there was seminary. specifically, a mini-shabbaton organized in seminary, by yours truly, for my tight-nit class of high school classmates. hearing of my new-found culinary skills, my friends begged me to make the shabbos day centerpiece….the cholent. determined to make a cholent that was out of this world, i took advice from my yeshiva boy brother (what i was thinking i still dont know), and decided to add beer. well, a lot of beer. and, on the big day, i ceremoniously doled out my super-cholent to my starving friends, and we all took a big bite….only to start gagging and choking. it tasted like hot beer. with soggy potatoes floating in it. and if that wasnt enough, the other girls staying in the building came to us with an empty bowl and asked if they could have some of our cholent–it seems that because i had stolen the hottest spot on our ancient blech, theirs had spoiled! g-d, it was mortifying. ‘ah kaparah’, as bubby would say.
then there was post-seminary, for the same lucky group of high school classmates (you’d think they would have learned and put me in charge of silverware or something…). this time it was a potato kugel. that looked delicous. that when we cut into it, proved to be a nuclear waste shade of GREEN. a collective groan, this time with muttering. sigh.
then there was shana rishona. and a tisha b’av break-fast meal with 5 ravenous buchurim waiting at my table, their stomachs growling. and the dish of fresh shnitzel on the windowsill, just about to go out. then the window flew open from a sudden gust of wind, sending the dish of shnitzels flying to the floor, covered in peices of broken glass. and then the tears, and panicky, hushed conversation behind closed kitchen doors….i took a frozen peice of corned beef from the freezer (i love you mom), and stuck it in a frying pan on high. this time, the guests didnt figure it out, unless they were astute enough to notice the mascara streaks….
these days, i create gourmet desserts at the drop of a hat, and some of my food is the stuff of legend among the bochurim we have over (no joke. carved into a dorm wall somewhere are the words ‘rebbitzen teitelbaum is the best cook in israel’). ahhh, redemption. now, if only i could convince some of my old high school friends to come for a meal….
hmmm…how about the time I put 6 packets of yeast into a new challah recipe, left my house for 2 hours, and came back to a kitchen covered in raisin challah dough? i literally found stray dough-covered raisins for weeks afterwards in cabinets, oven grates, and other kitchen crevices!
unexpected postscript: the challah was delicious! worth the mess? thats another story…
About 6 weeks after I had my first baby I decided it was high time to bake a cake. I used my mothers recipe for a chocolate cake that is delicious. I used a small bunt pan not realizing that cakes usually rise while in the oven. To add to the nightmare I put the cake on the lower rack of the oven. About an hour into baking the cake I went to check on it….. The cake had ballooned over the bunt pan onto the rack above and just continued to back on the rack.
The cake was yummy but the oven was a nightmare to clean! I took pictures of it so I could always remember what the oven looked like. I baked another cake after that came out delicious!
I learned a new thing just looking at the cover….
Never thought of using a whisk that way, makes drizzling frosting over a cake way simpler……
When I was twelve, my mom went out of town for a few days and I was helping out at home.
I decided to make pasta and cheese for dinner since i’ve watched my mom make it all the time…so i thought. I boiled up the water, with the pasta, cheese and sauce. I didn’t know i had to drain the water out…that was my first experience making a noodle soup…with sauce and cheese!
I don’t bake alot bc of all the preparation, so when I do, it’s a pretty big deal. I finally decided to bake a blueberry cake. On erev shabbos, after I put it in the oven, I realized it wouldn’t be done by the time I had to leave for an apt; so, my neighbor kindly agreed to take it out of the oven. When she came to check on it, it didnt seem done so she put it back & went home to continue her shabbos preparations…needless to say, the cake was in the oven too long! She felt sooo bad, so she posted on fb if anyone had any cake they could bring over…well, we had LOTS of cake that shabbos!
PS: the cake actually was good, once I cut off the burnt crust!!
I think one of the first times I tried to make Chocolate Chip Cookies by myself as a kid, I think I MELTED the margarine instead of just letting it SOFTEN- we ended up with very flat cookies!!!
My Grandma Anne, may she rest in peace, used to make a cheese and vegetable salad called, “Farmers’ Salad”. It had farmers cheese, diced cucumbers, onions, peppers, and tomatoes. I was a newly married Ashkenazi girl living in Los Angeles to a Sephardi man who thinks women have no place in the kitchen. I decided to make, “Mexican Farmer’s Salad– mixed jarred salsa (same ingredients, right?), chopped cucumbers, and cottage cheese since I had no Farmers Cheese. My husband thought it was a joke and wouldn’t eat it, nor would he let me back in the kitchen, although now I am permitted from time to time (and he has a restaurant–NEVER allowed in that kitchen!).
I adapted a recipe for dairy flan (egg custard) to make it pareve & serve it on Shabbos after lunch. I had done this before to rave reviews from my son & my South American husband & guests, in individual ramekin dishes. Making flan is a rather complicated process with a lot of steps & even more pans & dishes. Thinking that I might be able to save myself from washing a few extra dishes after Shabbos, I tried baking all of the flan in one pan. If you know that flan has to be flipped over for proper presentation, you will understand how my beautiful & highly anticipated dessert slid out of the pan, right off of the tray into my kitchen sink & down the drain! I think everyone was almost as disappointed as I was after all the work that went into it!
Oh boy… do I need this cook book! My disaster story? I’ll share it, if you promise to keep it to yourself!
I used to volunteer to make Challah for our local Yeshiva. I was baking Challah for the pre-Purim shabbos, As a special surprise for the boys I was making a batch of green challah. I added the massive bag of 25 pounds of flour to the huge industrial mixer. I added the other ingredients including 21 cups of water, 7 cups of sugar, 20 eggs… and 3 bottles of green food coloring! You get the picture… this is a lot of sticky, yucky colored dough. I carefully lowered the beaters into the mixture just as a large group of Yeshiva bachrim walked into the kitchen. Distractedly, I started the mixer. You have to start that mixer out on low… you really have to, as I learned when I accidentally started it on high… and had green challah dough EVERYWHERE throughout the kitchen and even all over many of those boys!! Oy… I was cleaning till well after midnight and I still had more (green) challah to make!
In my family I am known as the baker. I really enjoy baking and am usually pretty good at it but I have had some mishaps. Here are a few of them.
I made a chocolate cake for shabbos and decided that I would ice it. I didn’t have any icing sugar in the house so I borrowed a bag from my sister-in-law. Once the cake was completely frosted I licked the spatula only to realize that the icing tasted like soap! It turns out that the bag of icing sugar was stored near a box of laundry detergent and absorbed the taste.
It was my first time making pumpkin pie. I followed the recipe from the can and put the pie in the oven. After baking it for the specified amount of time it was still not set. I put it back in the oven for another few minutes with the same result – it wasn’t set. After close to 2 hours in the oven (on lower temperature so it wouldn’t burn) i finally realized that I had forgotten to put in the eggs! Of course, my mother-in-law was here when this happened!
We were having guests for shabbos lunch and I decided to make a chocolate chiffon cake for dessert. The baking time on the recipe was 1 hour and 20 minutes. After 40 minutes I smelled something burning so I looked into the oven to see if maybe some batter had leaked from the pan (I used a 2-piece tube pan). When I saw that it hadn’t, I opened the oven door and saw that the cake looked ready. I tested it and lo and behold it was completely baked in half the time! After this I bought an oven thermometer and found out that the thermostat was off by over 100 degrees!
Time: Last May
Location: My Kitchen
Event: My Twin Girls 4th, and Boy’s 2nd B-day Party
Being the healthy baker I am, I slaved away making a cake using almond, chickpea and spelt flour. Coconut oil, fresh zest, agave nectar, fresh coconut flakes. You get the point.
Put in cake pan… And the entire cake pan melted in the oven. Literally plastic melted through the oven racks onto the oven floor, smoke, burnt smell, major mess. No Cake. Still not sure what happened, and why a cake pan would not be oven safe??!! Took months to scrape plastic off racks.
1 hour till party I ran out and bought a cake mix and no one knew the difference.
No offense, but I think the cake mix sounds so much better than a cake with all those things in – chickpeas in cake?!?
hmm, don’t know if I can top any of these, or even if I technically can still enter the contest, but for this cookbook, it’s worth a try. Especially since it’s likely the most ‘expensive’ baking disaster of any here.
I don’t remember exactly what the occasion was, but I was in my usual sleep-starved state of mind, yet still determined to bake challah. Maybe it was ‘shlissel challah’ week, and I thought my entire parnasah depended on it. So I carefully measured the ingredients and followed the explicit directions I had created for myself to make challah dough using my magic mill mixer. With all the ingredients in, I set the timer and turned the machine on (boy did I love the timer on that machine). Suddenly flour started flying allover the kitchen, and my machine started groaning, and I heard it groan, and pant and finally it died… I forgot to add the water, and it seems you can burn out a motor real quick if you just add 6 lbs of flour and no liquid. Well a magic mill costs upwards of $500, so I’m not getting another any time soon… but if I get a cookbook out of the story, well it will make it just a little better
Here’s another baking disaster… just for fun. In 12th grade my friend and I volunteered to make dessert for our senior shabbos. We wanted to do something fun, so we thought we’d do fortune cookies, but since that wasn’t fancy enough we figured we’d make cream puffs and put the fortunes inside. We had a blast writing the fortunes, and then we carefully wrapped each in silver foil so that the ink wouldn’t run. However for some reason some chemical in the silverfoil interacted badly with a chemical in the custard and tinged the custard a sickening greyish-green. It was too late to do anything about it, so we decided we’d buy some cookies and called it a night.
Looks like a great cookbook. I would love it . Pretty please with a cherry on top!
I have two bad experiences to share. The first is pretty typical- i was baking a cheesecake for a party and followed the recipe exactly. I tasted the cheesecake after it was put out on the tables and it was sooo salty. I had asked my mother to copy it down for me and she had written quadruple the amount of salt. Ooops. I was so embarrased.
The next experience is funny. I love watermelon, so when i was about 15 I discovered a recipe for a watermelon sorbet. Sounds delicious , right? Needless to say you had to pulp the melon. OH what a disaster. I still don’t think my mother has forgiven me for the mess I made that day 20 years later! And of course, the whole thing went straight in the garbage……….
I baked yummy honey cake for rosh hashanah. The cake yields 3 large loaves & ruses really nicely. It’s a great recipe if you bake it in pans large enough to accommodate all the rising. I misjudged the size of my loaf pans, they were too small, & I had honey cake batter exploding all over the oven!!! Big, yummy – smelling mess!!
Soon after I was a newlywed, I took a fancy cooking class and was taught to make a quince and sweet potato gratin. I decided this would be a perfect dish to bring to a friend’s house for a holiday dinner. My new mother-in-law, a rather traditional woman, was visiting. She could NOT understand why anyone would add quince to, well, ANYTHING. This made her pretty uncomfortable, and she therefore situated herself across the house as far from the quince as she could.
Meanwhile in the kitchen, I carefully laid in alternating slices of quince and sweet potato into my new casserole dish. Then, as we were shown in class, I put my casserole on the stove top to heat the broth before putting it into the oven. Minutes later – BLAM! The entire dish exploded all over the kitchen, shards everywhere, food unusable. My MIL got very nervous.
Fortunately for me, I had more quince prepared (quince must first be cooked before using in recipes). Again, I carefully layered slices of quince and sweet potato, lovingly placing them into the next available casserole dish. Again, I put it on the stove top, and again – BLAM! The next dish exploded all over the kitchen.
Finally, my MIL runs into the kitchen to impart her years of home economics wisdom to me, and also to yell and let off a little steam. Turns out, pyrex doesn’t go on direct heat. Nu, WHO NEW?
when i fist got married, i tried to make pumpkin soup, the recipe said 1 cup chicken stock. i knew chicken stock had something to do with soup mix. it sounded like a lot of soup mix but my husband and I were like ‘OK thats what the recipe says, lets try it’
to make a long story short, i now know that STOCK is a tsp of mix in WATER lol….