The Jewish festival of Passover (Pesach) is coming up in a few days. We can’t eat any grains or anything that rises in memory of the Jews leaving Egypt after 400 years of slavery with only unleavened bread (Matza).
We have some amazing cakes that are traditional to bake in the lead up to Passover so we have enough Kosher for Passover things to eat during the 8 days.
The problem is, all these cakes use a huge amount of refined sugar.
When I was growing up I remember in the lead up to every Jewish festival seeing a recipe book out in my mum’s kitchen. It was Florence Greenberg’s Jewish Cookbook. It has every recipe for all the traditional foods over all the festivals as well as general traditional Jewish foods. My mum gave me her original copy on my wedding day and it was so special. It has all the cooking stains on the pages she used the most and I love that about it. I’ll keep it forever. This year I decided to try out Florrie’s original recipe, using all the original ingredients, but simply substituting the caster sugar for coconut palm sugar.
The almond macaroons turned out great but took a bit of practice as the coconut palm sugar kind of caramelises in a way that caster sugar doesn’t so the first batch went quite hard and I realised they needed way less time in the oven. The hard ones were still yummy dipped in tea but the next ones were softer and more like macaroons and I’m so happy with them. So far I’ve made 3 batches for friends and family! They really go beautifully with a cup of mint tea.
Even if you’re not celebrating Passover, give them a go, they’re delish!
Ingredients
2 egg whites
100g ground almonds
3 tbsp fine matza meal
170g coconut palm sugar
A handful flaked almonds for topping
Method
Preheat oven to 180* and line 2 baking trays with baking paper and grease with coconut oil.
Beat the egg whites very gently.
Mix the other ingredients in a bowl then add the egg whites and mix well until incorporated.
Roll into small balls and place on the baking trays and press down into macaroon shapes. They expand quite a lot so make them quite small.
Press a flaked almond into the middle of each one then put in the oven.
Bake for around 10 minutes depending on your oven. If it’s not a fan oven they may need 15 minutes. They should be starting to go golden around the edges but no more than that.
Love & health & chag sameach,
Lauren
