Salted honey and rosemary teiglach
Teiglach! This sweet honeyed dessert reminds me so much of my childhood Rosh Hashanah dinners. It is a mountain of baked or fried dough balls that are combined with nuts, dried fruits, and sprinkles by a honey syrup. And though it looks complex, it is stupidly easy.
Though teiglach, for me, tends to be specific to the Jewish Holidays, it’s a close cousin of the Italian struffoli, which is traditionally served for Christmas or Easter. So, you can feel good about serving this sticky treat for any occasion, really.
I added flaky sea salt and rosemary to my version because traditional teiglach is very sweet (hello, honey) and both of those ingredients tone down the sweetness. I also added almond extract to my dough, which makes for a more complex overall taste. The almond, rosemary, sea salt, and honey also play very well together.
I baked the dough because a) it’s marginally easier; b) it’s marginally healthier; and c) I hate nothing more than smelling like fried oil. Don’t be afraid to overbake the dough balls slightly as this will help them to stay crunchy when they’re covered in honey.
The only tricky part is making sure the honey syrup doesn't burn. I will admit that during recipe testing, I didn't turn the heat down fast enough and my honey almost boiled over. I used it anyway and it was completely fine.
Two quick notes:
This is a relatively small batch of teiglach. So, if you're feeding a crowd for the holidays, I would double it.
Use a cheap, grocery store honey for this. I’ve used a darker, local, wildflower honey and the flavor was a bit too strong. The stuff in a bottle shaped like a bear or something equally cheap is perfect.
Salted honey and rosemary teiglach
2 eggs, whisked
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon zest (zest of 1 large lemon)
½ tsp almond extract
1 cup AP flour
½ Tbsp granulated sugar
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¾ cup toasted mixed nuts, roughly chopped
½ cup light-colored and lightly flavored honey
2 Tbsp sugar
1 ½-2 tsp fresh rosemary, minced and divided (to taste)
¾ tsp Sea salt, divided
Preheat the oven to 350. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the eggs and olive oil and whisk until well mixed and lightly bubbly. Add the lemon zest and almond extract and whisk again to combine.
Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and mix just until all of the flour is incorporated. It will be a thick batter.
Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead 5-6 times, just until it feels a little springy and less sticky. Divide the dough in half and roll out each half into a long, thin snake, about ¾ of an inch thick. Chop the snake into ½-inch pieces. Roll each piece into a small ball. The balls should be between the size of a dime and a nickel.
Bake at 350 for 20-23 minutes until the balls are lightly golden brown and hollow sounding. If you feel like they’re not browning, check the bottoms. If they're golden brown, the balls are done. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
While the balls are baking, roast the nuts in a toaster oven or stick them into the oven with the balls (on a separate sheet) until they start to smell nutty. Remove and let cool. Chop roughly, if desired.
Mince the rosemary and set aside ½ tsp. Combine the mixed nuts, 1 tsp of rosemary, and ½ tsp of flaky sea salt and mix well.
Once the balls are out of the oven, in a small saucepan, bring the honey and sugar to a boil over medium heat, stirring often. Once the sugars starts boiling throughout (not just on the edges), reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring often, for 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Place the balls in a large bowl with the nuts, rosemary, and salt and stir. Pour the honey mixture over the cookies, nuts, and spices and mix well. This will take some elbow grease as the honey cools.
Pour the entire mixture into your serving bowl making a pyramid shape as your pour. If the honey is too warm and the mixture won’t form into a mound, let it cool for a few minutes and try again. Once you get the mixture into a mound, let cool completely in the fridge.
Bring back to room temperature for serving. Just before serving, top with the remaining ½ tsp of rosemary and ¼ tsp of flaky sea salt.
This dessert is best served the day it's made, but will keep well, covered with plastic wrap at room temperature, for up to two days.
Yield: Enough for 5-6 adults, depending on appetites and tolerance for sweet things
Corn dog fritters
Hey all- it's July 4th, which means you may be feeling somewhat festive (or, at least, someone close to you is feeling festive enough to throw a BBQ. One of my favorite things when we lived in NYC was that Shake Shack would serve the most amazing corn dogs only on Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day.
We've tried to recreate them at home and it's sort of a gross process. The smell of frying oil sticks around in my hair long after the dogs have been consumed. And, they require SO MUCH OIL. I mean, I was theoretically aware of how much was required to properly fry something, but doing it yourself is...jarring.
So instead, I tossed some hotdogs into my favorite corn fritter recipe, made a few tweaks, and called it a day. These guys are delicious and require a comparatively scant two tablespoons of oil. Use avocado oil and it's even a good fat! And since I've used corn flour instead of wheat flour, these fritters are naturally gluten-free.
A couple of notes:
- Swap out the milk for almond or coconut milk to make these dairy-free.
- Cooking times on these fritters or patties vary widely. I made them once and they browned in less than 3 minutes. If I'm impatient about heating the oil, it takes up to 7 minutes for a golden crust to form.
- We've been getting our eggs from a local farm, so the sizes range from small to ostrich. Not really, but some of the eggs are gigantic. One of the giant ones is sufficient for this recipe, but if yours are a regular uniform size, use two.
- If you can, use fresh corn cut from the cob. It tastes so much better.
Corn dog fritters
½ cup corn flour
¼ cup fine corn meal
½ tsp salt
¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp Aleppo pepper, cayenne pepper, or ½ tsp paprika
2 tsp honey
¼ cup milk
1 extra large egg (or 2 large eggs)
1 cup corn kernels (1 large ear)
1 cup chopped hotdogs (2 large)
2 Tbsp avocado oil for frying
Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the wet ingredients and mix well. Let sit for about 5 minutes to let the baking soda activate- this is about the time it takes to get the oil hot.
Heat the oil over a medium-low flame until very hot. Add about ¼ cup of the corn mixture (for large patties) or 1/8 cup of corn mixture (for small fritters) and let them brown on one side before flipping, about 2-4 minutes. Flip and cook on the other side until deep golden brown, again about 2-4 minutes.
Serve with ketchup, mustard, and whatever other dipping sauces you might like.
Yield: 6-7 large patties or 14-16 small fritters
Almond cookies
Easter and Passover fall during the same weekend this year, so why not bake a dessert that fits the bill for both? They're a little like a French Macaron, but with a lot less work. They're also a little merengue-y, but much less tricky and far quicker to bake.
I first made these Chewy Almond Cookies for the holidays a few years ago. My mom loves a Linzer torte and my father-in-law loves anything with marzipan, but I needed something a bit simpler to add to the cookie tray. The original version called for store-bought almond paste, but it's expensive and sometimes hard to find, so these cookies sub in almond flour (NOT almond meal) and powdered sugar.
Skipping the almond paste also makes these kosher for Passover because the paste uses some kind of gluten-derived syrup as a sweetener.
I've fiddled with the technique a bit as well. Adding the egg whites to the food processor first and whizzing them until they're thick and white makes the cookies lighter, airier, and more chewy. You don't need to go for stiff peaks or even soft peaks, but just a frothy milky mixture.
The only tricky part of this recipe is getting the texture of the batter right. Too thick, and it's hard to pipe, but too thin and the cookies spread out and get too crunchy. You want to be able to run a finger through the batter and the indentation stays put. (See the photo below.)
The original recipe also calls for raspberry jam, which is delicious. But I used lemon curd here because it felt more springy. Also, it seemed like an apt use of the leftover egg yolks. However, I confess that I've never actually made my own lemon curd before and my first try was...not great. The taste was delicious, but it was entirely too runny. So, I bought some at the grocery store and called it a day. No shame.
Almond Cookies
2 large eggs, white and yolk separated
1 cup almond meal
¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ tsp almond extract
½ tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cardamom
¼ tsp salt
2 cups sliced almonds
Preheat the oven to 350.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Make 9 small piles of almonds roughly the size of a quarter. Set aside.
Add the egg whites to a food processor. Whiz on high speed until the whites look frothy and milky, about 1-2 minutes.
Add the rest of the ingredients and whiz to combine. The batter will likely form a ball. Keep processing until the ball smoothes back out. If the batter is too thick (stays in a ball after another minute of processing), separate another egg white and yolk and add ½ of the egg white to the batter and process again.
Add the batter to a large zip lock bag or a piping bag and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 day.
Once chilled, pipe about 2 Tbsp of batter in a circle over each pile of almonds. The batter will be thick, so feel free to use your fingers to help it out of the bag. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little wonky because the cookies spread out while baking.
Top with more sliced almonds.
Bake for 5 minutes and rotate the pan. Bake for 5 minutes more. Be careful not to overbake these cookies. They’re done even when they look slightly raw in the middle. You want just a hint of color around the edges. Let cool for 5 minutes on the pan and move to a wire rack to cool completely.
Yield: 18-20 cookies
