Lekach

Lekach Recipe –

Ingredients -

Flour – 3 ½ cups

Baking powder – 1 ½ teaspoons

Baking soda – ½ teaspoon

Cinnamon – 1 teaspoon

Allspice – ½ teaspoon

Salt – ¼ teaspoon

Honey – 1 cup

Strong coffee, cooled – ½ cup

Vegetable oil – 2 tablespoons

Eggs – 4

Brown Sugar – 1 cup

Chopped Walnuts or Almonds – ¾ cup

Raisins, soaked in warm water and drained – ¾ cup

Brandy or rum (optional) – 3 tablespoons

Directions -

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the honey, coffee, and oil. Both set aside.

2. Add the eggs and brown sugar to the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium speed until light and foamy, 4-5 minutes.

3. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add about 1/3 of the flour mixture, allowing it to incorporate fully. Next add half of the honey-mixture, once again allowing it to be fully incorporated. Continue with another 1/3 of the flour mixture, the remaining honey mixture, and finish with the remaining flour.

4. Remove the mixer bowl and gently fold in the walnuts, soaked raisins and brandy with a wooden spoon or spatula.

5. Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9-inch round or square cake pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

6. Remove the cake to a counter and cool completely before removing from the pan. Cut into diamond-shaped slices and serve with hot coffee.

My second stop on my way ‘around the world’ is in Israel. Lekach is a traditional Jewish honey cake, seasoned with many spices. This dessert, which is usually served with coffee, is eaten mainly within the Jewish religion, or anywhere in Israel. It is especially popular on the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah. The cake symbolizes a sweet New Year on the Jewish calendar. To me, this cake symbolizes a very sweet treat! I chose this dessert, thinking it would be an easy one to make - I was right! The recipe was pretty easy to follow, and the cake turned out very good! I altered the ingredients a tad by using pecans instead of walnuts or almonds, like the recipe says. I had mistakenly bought the wrong kind of nut! But, it still turned out delicious, so if pecans are the only nut you have, they work perfectly fine for this kind of cake. I also did not use the optional brandy or rum in my recipe, because we did not have any on hand. One of the variations for the recipe was using apple juice instead of coffee. If I ever make this cake again, I will most definitely try that; it sounds like it would be a good replacement. My cake also took a little bit longer to bake – about 60 minutes. Something strange that I noticed was that, after it had been out of the oven for a little while, the middle part of the cake had sunk in a little bit (you can see this in the picture). I thought this was kind of weird, but it tasted normal to me! The Lekach was very moist, and the spices added some great flavor. Overall, the cake turned out super yummy, and got great reviews from most of my family members (except the non-raisin lovers). I would give it a rating of 4 stars out of 5! 

Alfajores

Alfajores Recipe -

 

Ingredients

Cornstarch - 1 cup

Flour - 1 cup

Baking powder - 1 teaspoon

Unsalted butter - 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks)

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Egg yolks - 2

Dulce de leche - 1 cup

Directions

1.      Sift the cornstarch, flour and baking powder together in a medium bowl. In a mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks, beating until they are incorporated.

2.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture in 3 batches, allowing each batch to become incorporated before adding the next.

3.      Form the dough into a disc without handling it too much. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

4.      Preheat oven to 350°F. Remove the dough to a lightly floured work surface and roll out to about 1/8-inch thick. Cut out 40 2-inch rounds, and carefully place the rounds on two lightly greased cookie sheets.

5.  Bake for 9 to 10 minutes, but not so long that they begin to brown. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Then remove the cookies to wire racks and cool completely.

6.      Spread about 2 teaspoons of dulce de leche on the flat half of a cookie and cover it with the flat half of another cookie to form a sandwich. Repeat with the remaining cookies. If desired, sprinkle the finished cookies with powdered sugar.

I tend to think that the richer, the better when it comes to desserts. That’s why, for my first stop in my 'around the world' blog posting, I decided to bake Alfajores; South American dulce de leche sandwich cookies. When I found this recipe, I immediately thought, yum. These cookies actually originate in Spain, but are much more popular in South America. They are very common and traditional in several Latin American families. The dulce de leche is used as a topping on many other foods, like muffins, cakes, and ice cream. This dessert is made up of two, thin shortbread cookies, with a dulce de leche (caramel spread) in the middle. The original Alfajores recipe calls for 1 cup of dulce de leche. I don’t know about everyone, but I don’t have that just sitting in my fridge. So, I searched around, and found a pretty easy-looking recipe for it. As you can see, the recipe says to simmer for about an hour to an hour and a half until it thickens or caramelizes. Well... more like three and a half hours! I kept looking over my recipe and ingredients to check and see if I had forgotten or missed something – I didn’t. So, I just kept the caramel mixture on the stove, over low heat, just like the directions instructed. Even though it took some time, everything worked out in the end. The only other problem I had was with the cookie dough. It was slightly difficult to roll out thin enough because it kept breaking apart. Eventually, I figured everything out, and the cookies were delicious! The dulce de leche was creamy, and the overall cookie was very rich, just as I had predicted. A tip for anyone wanting to make these cookies: they taste much better if you refrigerate them for a while. This allows the caramel filling to harden, so it’s easier to eat, and in my opinion, it makes it taste a whole lot better! I definitely recommend Alfajores to anyone with a sweet tooth!