Cranberry Brie Pull Apart Loaf

We don't have parties very often, but I just made this for a winter tea. It's appropriate anytime, but lovely for the Thanksgiving to New Years holiday stretch. It is beautiful and delicious. A bit of a technical challenge, but not much in the way of complexity. Quantities are flexible.

1 round or oval boule or sour dough loaf
1/3 c whole cranberry sauce (could be apple slices for RH) [I just made a small amount with equal parts water, sugar, and cranberries]
5 T butter

1-2 T honey
8-10 oz Brie (it's easy to find kosher brands now, for whatever reason) - sliced thin.
a few sprigs of rosemary, chopped, plus a few sprigs for garnish

Thyme - chopped or ground, maybe a teaspoon.

Preheat oven to 350.

Cut the loaf in a criss-cross grid, leaving the bottom intact. Make sure the knife is sharp - if the bread is dense, this is hard. One recipe said to do is diagonally, which might be easier.

Melt the butter with honey, rosemary, and thyme.

Setting the sliced loaf on a tin foil base, on your baking tin - pour about half of the melted butter in the crevices and over the top so it soaks in.

Poke the brie slices in the cuts, in both directions. It's going to melt, so don't worry about it being perfect.

Pour, or by hand, stuff cooked cranberries in the slots. Pour the rest of the cranberry sauce and the butter over the top.

Bake until the brie melts, about 15 minutes. Don't overbake or it's really hard to cut the bottom. 

It's nice on a pedestal cake server. Garnish with rosemary sprigs.

Use a serrated spatula and pull!

This is gorgeous! And delicious!

There was a lot leftover and I served it room temperature at a kiddush, and people enjoyed it that way, too. But hot and gooey is the goal.

Lemon Cream Cheese Tarts

This recipe came from Susan Schuman, a Schechter mom wtih a son was named Eric. These are very rich, but since you make them as individual little tarts, they are perfect. Nice for Shavuot. Since COVID, people are doing more individual baked goods, and they're also just right for a tea. Be sure to allow for the hour to chill the dough.

8 oz cream cheese - softened at room temperature
2 sticks of butter - softened at room temperature
1 c. flour
2 T sugar
salt to taste
1/2 t cinnamon
optional: grated lemon zest to taste

1 can of lemon pie filling (or another flavor if you prefer)

1 pint raspberries or small strawberries (like from the Strawberry Lady of Broadneck Road!)

Add the butter and cream cheese to a large mixing bowl. Mix with a pastry blender (a hand tool.) Slowly add flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and optional lemon zest. Knead til smooth, by hand. Refrigerate for one hour.

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Pinch 1" balls of dough and place in silicon muffin cups. Press into place making saucer shapes, with dough creating sides.Fill each with a spoonfullof pie filling.

Bake for 35-45 minutes until browned, checking they aren't burning.

Cool in the pans. Eventually pop them out and cool on racks. Refrigerate before serving. Add rasperries or strawberries for decoration. A few blueberries each would be pretty too.

Makes about 30.

Cranberry Pistachio Icebox Cookies

These are based on a Martha Stewart recipe for Cranberry Noels. They are easy to make and swapping pistachios for her original pecans, really colorful.

They barely spread so you can get a lot on a tin - but the do spread some. Don't bake too long or the bottoms burn. They are lovely with white icing drizzled over them.

1 c (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature -              this is challenging if it's a cold day!
3/4 cup sugar
2 T milk
1 t  pure vanilla extract or orange or lemon zest
2  c all-purpose flour

1/4 c whole wheat
1/2 t salt
3/4 c dried, chopped cranberries
1/2 c chopped pistachios

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. [Unless the butter is soft, this doesn't work!]

Add milk and vanilla or zest. Beat until just combined. 

With mixer on low, gradually add flour, salt, cranberries, and pistachios; continue beating until fully combined.

Turn dough out onto a clean work surface, and divide into 2 equal pieces. Shape each piece into  8-inch square or rectangular logs, about 2 inches in diameter. No need to cover. Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Using a sharp knife, cut logs into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Transfer to oil-sprayed baking sheets, fairly close together, but leave some space. Bake until edges are golden, 16 to 18 minutes, rotating baking sheets halfway through. They crisp as they dry, so resist the temptation to overbake.

When cooled, compact them on a cookie tin and drizzle royal icing. The fancy way to make it is with meringue powder but you can just use powdered sugar, some vanilla, and a little milk. Use a heavy ziplock. The hard part is transfering the icing into the ziplock. Put a pinhole in the tip of the ziplock, and squeeze & drizzle. One cup of powdered sugar with as little liquid as you need is plenty. Add the liquid 1/2 t at a time. 

Or, drip with a spoon. I am still working on this. The icing glops from the spoon and then flows smoother....

I brought these to Frieda Naumburg's bat mitzvah, mostly in a tent in Judy and Chayim's backyard as it was still COVID. These were a big hit with Chayim, David, and Zach.

Yeast Coffee Ring

This was a Fargo favorite - Aunt Ruth made it, using Dorothy Goodman and Jay Siegel's recipe. This recipe is a very flexible dough which can be shaped and rolled out, twisted, braided + more, and does not require kneading. Note it is made a day ahead and refrigerated. I have rewritten the recipe in a more step-by-step format with ALL the ingredients at the beginning. For the filling, you can be creative - softened cream cheese, jams, poppy seed or almond filling, chocolate chips-- most anything works fine.



2 c. luke warm milk (not boiled)

1 fresh cake yeast (= 2 ¼ teaspoons dry yeast)

1 T. sugar (for yeast mixture)
-------------------------------------------------------------
6 c. flour

1 t. salt

3 T. sugar

½ lb. butter

4 beaten eggs

1 t. vanilla
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

butter (for spreading on rolled out dough, next day)

brown sugar

cinnamon

raisins

(nuts, mini-chocolate chips, jam - anything else! - optional)

---------------------------------------------------------------
Confectioners sugar

lemon or amond extract

milk

1. In a mixing bowl, combine warm milk, 1 fresh yeast cake ans 1 T sugar until dissolved. Set aside for 10 minutes to proof.
2. While waiting, sift into large mixing bowl (or mix-master) the 6 cups of flour, 1 t. salt, and 3 T. sugar.
3. Cut in the two sticks of butter. Beat until incorporated.
4. Back to the yeast mixture: Add 4 beaten eggs and 1 t. vanilla
5. Mix into the flour mixture. Beat until smooth.
6. Cover (with a shower cap!) and refrigerate OVERNIGHT.

Good morning. The dough will be a little soft. Add flour to the board (or counter) and knead the dough, adding flour as needed, until it is not too sticky to work with.

1. Divide into 4 equal portions.
2. Roll thin into a rectangle (approx 9 x 18) which will become a jellyroll.
3. Shmear with all the filling. You can either cover the whole surface or just one end, running the long way.
4. Roll tight.
5. On a greased tin, make it into a crescent or circle. Lots of fancy things you can do w cuts and twists. This version is cut and twisted, alternating in and out.

6. Cover with a towel or plastic and let it rise for 3 hours! Another version is to heat the oven to just 100 or so, turn it off, and put the cakes in. Not sure they really need covering.
7. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. Let cool.
8. Mix the confectioners sugar, milk (tiny amount!), and extract and frost your cakes.

You could sprinkle them with slivered almonds, too, if this isn't already yummy enough.

Ricotta and Almond Flan

This cake is great chilled. It is drier than a cheescake, and not as cloyingly rich. Plus, it's gluten free. It is theoretically Kosher for Passover but you'd need substitutions for quite a few of the ingredients, so focus on Shavuot.
The only hard task is the citrus zest. Otherwise, easy.

1 c. almond flour
1/3 c. ground almonds (to give the cake more texture)
6 eggs
1 15. oz container part-skim ricotta
¾ c. sugar
¼ c. dark rum
1 t. vanilla
Grated zest of 2 oranges or lemons ( or one of each) - microplanes are perfect to do this
½ t. grated nutmeg (nice if it's freshly grated but I've never done that.)

Fruit for accompanying it - your choice.  Raspberries are nice, but really, anything. Great when local strawberries are in~

Preheat oven to 325°

Spray or butter a 9" springform pan or two smaller pans.

In large mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients. A hand mixer is good for this.

Spoon in the batter and bake until lightly browned on the edges and set in the center, about 40-45 minutes.

Remove the rim of the pan and set this on a lovely footed cake plate :-).  This would be a nice addition to a tea.  

- Just googled it and found out it is from The New York Times Jewish Cookbook, and the recipe is Regina Schambling's.  The original  says toast 1⅓ c slivered almonds for 3-5 minutes until just browned, at 300, and then grind them in a blender or food processor.

Tea Party!

Any community organizer worth her salt hosts tea parties.  It's a lovely way to build relationships, enjoy each other's company, and generally just be civilized.  Teas draw people out, and the traditional British tea table is just so pretty.  I grew up with pretty china around, but teas were not a thing.  I am not sure quite when I got into the whole convention, but our house on Cliveden Street certainly lent itself to teas, and I guess when I inherited the silver tea service, it was asking to be used.  My mother used it on very special occasions.  I am the reverse, I like to create an occasion and make it special by using it! [I have since donated the silver service but the same rule applies - use your beautiful things.]

Teas can be simple.  I use them as an excuse to bake things I never would have in the house, because they are loaded with butter and sugar, take a lot of time to prepare, and are generally treats.  The staple is dressed up Dorrie Greenspan scones, iced with simple confectioners sugar glaze.  Put about 1/2 c. confectioners sugar in a bowl and add water DROP by DROP until it's just smooth enough to spoon on the baked scones.  Easiest is to dip each scone in the bowl of icing.

Sugared grapes on a glass platter

Another fun treat, a new experiment, is sugared grapes.  They are so simple it is ridiculous. Cut a bunch of grapes into clusers of 4-5 grapes.  Dip them in sugared, honeyed, or agaved (?) water and then into a container of sugar.  Or you could put the sugar in a container with a top and shake them.  Then set them down and the sugar hardens.  You can freeze them and eat them frozen or just eat them room temperature.  They are prettier in clusters than individually.

It's nice to have a pretty cake at a tea, and little tea cakes.  The ricotta cookies make good tea cakes.  Quickbreads do too, like a banana bread. The blueberry or cranberry crumbles, baked in silicon muffin tins, would be ideal for a tea - individual portions, and colorful.

Tea sandwiches are a fun British tradition.  Basically you need a loaf of fairly soft sliced bread.  Any filling is fine, and a thinly sliced cucumber is a good addition.  You need soft butter.  Take one bread slice, but a thin filling of, say, egg salad, add a cucumber slice, put the top on, and carefully slice off the crusts.  Then slice in four diagonals, for pretty little sandwiches.  Salmon works well, cream cheese, some add watercress for crunch.  Don't know why these are so appealing, but they are!