10 Days of Hamantashen, Day 5: Mexican Chocolate Hamantashen

This hamantashen flavor is brought to you by the letters ‘S’ and ‘D’, as in ‘San Diego’. Last winter when I returned from living in Israel sooner than expected, I was lucky to be able to crash in San Diego for a few months with my good friends. I honestly don’t know what I would […]

10 Days of Hamantashen, Day 4: Za’atar Feta Knishentashen

They say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. In the case of hamantashen and knishes, two very different and beloved Jewish pastries, there definitely ain’t nothin broke. But sometimes two great things can create an even better marriage. Take, for example, the “knishentashen”. The… k-nishen-what-now? This mash-up of hamantashen and knishes was created by the […]

10 Days of Hamantashen, Day 3: Ugly-Delicious S’mores Hamantashen

Italians have a cookie called brutti ma buoni, which means ‘ugly but good’. They are meringues with nuts or chocolate chips folded into them, and they have nothing whatsoever to do with Purim, hamantashen, or Judaism in any way; the only thing they have in common with these Ugly-Delicious S’mores Hamantashen is just that– they […]

10 Days of Hamantashen, Day 2: Cinnamon Dulce de Leche

I used to think March was such a blah month. Aside from St. Patrick’s Day, there just wasn’t much going on, and it’s such a very, extremely, annoyingly long month in my spring semester on the school calendar, not to mention we lose an hour of sleep. But when I started making hamantashen a few […]

10 Days of Hamantashen, Day 1: Oreo Hamantashen

This is momentous. I’ve been planning 10 Days of Hamantashen for a couple of years, and I’m over the moon at finally finishing to write up that many dough and filling variations! If I have to pick a single Jewish cookie as my favorite, I would probably have to choose hamantashen. Thanks to Uri Scheft’s […]

Black Sesame Coconut Rugelach Spirals

I’ve always been one to dabble in different cultures. I was born in Israel, raised in California, studied in Boston and Paris, and I travel as much as I possibly can in my adult life. I’ve always connected best with others who have a connection to another culture or language. It’s such a vast world, […]

Deb’s Mom’s Apple Cake

I’ve been living in Tel Aviv for 3 months now, which in and of itself, blows my mind, but more importantly at the moment, I’m about to celebrate my first Rosh Hashanah ever in Israel. (Okay, technically I celebrated a few as a baby, but seeing as how I was barely a sentient being, I feel […]

Pop Tart Hamantashen

My whole life, I’ve more or less been a creature of habit when it comes to hamantashen. I grew up eating apricot-filled ones, which I will happily gobble up to this day, but poppyseed… nope, no thank you, blech. Also, if you throw in a chocolate-filled one, I’m definitely in, no questions asked. Other jams, […]

Chocolate-Halva Babka

As much as I love contemporary baking like layer cakes, cupcakes, and pastries, there are few baked goods that conjure childhood nostalgia like babka. Aside from my mom’s birthday cakes shaped in the number of my age each year, the most memorable and most loved cake that she made (and the most labor-intensive) was her “ugat-sh’marim”, or yeast […]

Apple Orange Rye Honey Cake

We interrupt this regularly scheduled Italian Desserts blog post to wish you a Belated Shana Tova! If you celebrate the Jewish High Holy Days, I hope your Jewish New Year is off to an excellent start. I was planning to post a spiffy honey cake for you before the holiday, but it didn’t quite work out as […]