Pascale’s Kitchen: Lots of honey for a sweet year

This week, I deliver you three recipes which might be all sweetened utilizing honey. This has been a tough 12 months, because of the pandemic, and we will all use a little bit of sweetness in our lives. The best way we go about our day and the way we have a good time the vacations are completely different now and stuffed with uncertainty. One of the best ways I’ve discovered to counteract these troubles is by including a lot of honey to my Rosh Hashanah menu.

Honey is constituted of nectar, which is the sugary juice that collects within the coronary heart of flowers. If you go to purchase honey in a retailer, one can find that there are such a lot of completely different varieties to select from, every with its personal texture, taste and aroma. Every honey is completely different because of the distinctive terroir or environmental components during which the flowers develop, together with local weather and soil, in an analogous strategy to how forms of grapes grown in several areas are used to supply many varieties of wine.

In relation to honey, its taste depends upon what area the bees dwell in, what varieties of flowers they gathered nectar from and the kind of soil during which the flowers grew. Some honeys are constituted of nectar present in just a few several types of flowers.

I didn’t need to embody solely photos of jars of honey within the Journal this week, so I requested Yarden Sharon, who’s a beekeeper, if he can be so variety as to ship me one in all his honey challot – for which he’s well-known – and he did.

The honey he used on this challah got here from the nectar of jujube flowers. Together with the challah, Sharon additionally despatched me an outline of the dietary properties of jujube flower honey. Apparently, consuming one teaspoon a day of jujube flower honey can maintain us sturdy and wholesome as we embark on the brand new 12 months.

Under, one can find three recipes that every one embody honey. The primary one is a fusion of baklava, which hails from Balkan delicacies, along with the Moroccan pastilla. However as a substitute of being crammed with meat or nuts, it’s crammed with dried fruits blended with nuts. And as a substitute of being lined with syrup or powdered sugar, it’s brushed with honey.

The second recipe is for a conventional spiced honey cake, which requires espresso, and will be baked in any dimension or form pan you need: loaf pan, spherical springform pan and even in muffin tray.

The quantity of honey you add will have an effect on the feel and colour of your cake – the extra honey you employ, the darker and denser the cake might be.

Don’t overlook so as to add further substances, akin to nuts, raisins, dates or apples, to the cake to make it further particular. Simply keep in mind that when you add fruit to the cake, it needs to be saved within the fridge.

The third recipe is for pull-apart buns, that are known as churag in Iraqi delicacies, kazinak in Turkish, Balkan and Romanian delicacies, arani galushkeh in Hungarian and shurik in Egyptian delicacies. The variations between all of those variations are minor.

Might all of us take pleasure in a candy new 12 months, stuffed with pleasure and happiness.

Shana Tova u’metuka!

Honey challot (NIS 180) will be ordered from Yarden Sharon, 052-583-0480.

SPICED HONEY CAKE

Use a Surprise Pot or 2 loaf pans.

¾ cup oil
¾ cup sugar
4 eggs
1 cup honey
1 stage tsp. floor cloves
1 tsp. floor cinnamon
½ tsp. floor ginger
3 cups spelt flour, sifted
1 packet baking powder
1 stage tsp. baking soda
½ cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
½ cup raisins
1 cup ready immediate espresso

Toppings:

½ cup nuts, chopped
¼ cup sugar crystals
½ tsp. cinnamon

Add the oil, sugar, eggs and honey to a big bowl. Combine properly by hand or with an electrical mixer.

Add the cloves, cinnamon, ginger, flour, baking powder, baking soda and nuts. Combine properly.

Add the cup of ready espresso to the combination and blend properly.

Grease a Surprise Pot or loaf pans and pour the batter inside. Combine the toppings collectively and sprinkle on high. Bake for 1 hour in an oven that has been preheated to 180° or till a toothpick inserted within the center comes out dry.

Stage of issue: Simple.
Time: 75 minutes.
Standing: Parve.

Filo dough with dried fruits. (credit score: PASCALE PEREZ-RUBIN)

FILO DOUGH WITH DRIED FRUITS

Makes 25-30 pastries.

6 sheets of filo dough

Filling:

2 cups dried fruits, chopped finely
1 cup pecans or pistachios, floor finely
½ cup peanuts, floor finely
1 cup almonds, floor finely
½ cup sugar
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. zest from an orange
½ tsp. cinnamon
Butter taste oil spray

Honey combination:

¾ cup honey
2-3 drops lukewarm water
½ tsp. citrus focus, non-obligatory

Topping:

½ cup pistachio, finely floor

Place the filo dough in fridge to defrost. Place the chopped dried fruits in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine all of the nuts, sugar, lemon juice, zest and cinnamon collectively.

Unfold a sheet of filo dough in your work floor and spray calmly with oil. Unfold a second sheet on high of the primary one, then lower the filo dough into 4 squares and spray them with oil. Do the identical with the opposite filo dough sheets.

Spray a muffin pan with oil after which line every muffin cavity with one of many dough squares, with the corners hanging over the sting. Add the filling on high of dough. Use leftover dough items to cowl the filling, after which fold over corners on high of muffins.

Spray every muffin with oil, then bake for 40 minutes in an oven that has been preheated to 180° or till muffins have turned golden brown.

In a bowl, combine the honey with the water and add the citrus focus if desired.

Take the muffin tray out of the oven and switch the muffins to a serving platter. Brush with honey combination (you don’t want so as to add water to combination when you favor thick honey). Sprinkle pistachios on high.

Stage of issue: Simple.
Time: 1 hour.
Standing: Parve.

Pull-apart buns (credit score: PASCALE PEREZ-RUBIN)

PULL-APART BUNS

Use a 27 cm. x 35 cm. pan.

25 gr. recent yeast
½ cup water
1 Tbsp. sugar
A little bit of flour
½ kg. flour, sifted
¾ cup sugar
3 eggs
3 Tbsp. oil
1 packet vanilla sugar
1-1½ cups water
100 gr. butter or margarine, softened and lower into medium items
½-1 tsp. turmeric
½ tsp. salt
100 gr. mild raisins

Butter topping:

50 gr. butter or margarine, melted

Egg wash:

1 egg, overwhelmed with just a little water or oil
¼ cup sesame seeds
Honey combination:
¾ cup honey
2-3 drops lukewarm water
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, add yeast, sugar and water. Cowl and let yeast dissolve and bubble for quarter-hour.

Place the flour within the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook. Type a properly within the heart and add the sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla sugar and dissolved yeast combination. Combine, and whereas mixing step by step, add the water, butter, turmeric, salt and raisins. Combine properly.

Cowl the bowl with a heat, damp towel and let the dough rise for 60-90 minutes till the dough has doubled in quantity.

Grease an oblong pan. Knead the dough once more and punch out all of the air. Type balls with a 3- or 4-cm. diameter from the dough. Brush every ball with melted oil and place on the baking tray. Place the balls on the tray in order that they’re all touching one another. Brush with egg wash, then let the buns rise once more for half-hour.

Bake for 20-25 minutes in an oven that has been preheated to 180°.

Put together the honey combination and brush buns with honey the second they arrive out of the oven.

Stage of issue: Simple.
Time: 2.5 hours.
Standing: Parve or dairy.

Translated by Hannah Hochner.