Pesach birthday

[Dilbertian]

I can’t eat gluten. We’re not Orthodox, and don’t worry about hechshers or kitniot, but other than that we do not eat chametz during Pesach. We’ll have proper matzo on the table, plus GF matzo for me.

My birthday falls on Seder night this year. I could just celebrate before or after Pesach, but I rarely do anything much for my birthday and this one’s a significant one. So I’d quite like to have something special at the meal.

Any suggestions?

Almond cake? Hazelnut cake? I always make those for Pesach.

Always, yes. I sort of want something that we don’t always have.

I also make a pesach complaint cheesecake and a fruit crisp. Any interest there?

What about this? It's delish. https://smittenkitchen.com/2013/03/chocolate-hazelnut-macaroon-torte/

Oh, now there's a blast from the past! I had forgotten that DM used to make me a hazlenut meringue cake when my birthday fell during Pesach. Happy memories 🥰 A definite possible.

Cheesecake on Pesach? I mean, I'll eat cheesecake at any time, but it doesn't feel right to have it at any other festival, IYSWIM. It would be like having hamantaschen on Rosh Hashannah! Still... What's your cheesecake? I do either a baked Polish 'millstone' or individual no-bake lemon cheesecakes.

What is a fruit crisp?

I know, cheesecake seems like a Shavuot thing, not Pesach, but I made it one year and it was a smash, so I have kept it up. I use Junior's recipe (https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1026300-juniors-cheesecake) and adapt it. I skip the cake layer, obviously and use ground up kichel and/or mandelbrot and add a little melted butter and sugar for the crust, bake it until firm, then add the cheesecake mix, substituting potato starch for the corn starch (corn flour, you say) and bake. I usually make a sour cream topping and serve with strawberries. It's extremely popular. Fruit crisp is like apple crumble. I use mixed frozen berries with a little sugar and enough potato starch to help it firm up somewhat, cover with matzo cake meal mixed with butter, sugar, cinnamon and baked until nicely brown. You can also add sliced almonds, but I often have someone at our table who has the nut allergy! Very tricky during Pesach. Served with whipped cream.

A lemon meringue pie can work really well on pesach if you like those.

Also, find out when your hebrew birthday is and celebrate that. :) Although sounds like you need a KLP cake all year round, at least you can have a day that is more focused on you.

11 Nissan. I'm a Pesach baby 😁

Lemon meringue pudding (ie LMP without the crust) is my signature Seder night dessert.

This is the challenge, really. Finding something that isn't one of our regular pesach dishes.

My oldest child is a pesach baby and we sometimes go down the pavlova or ice cream cake route! We do the same for my birthday most years, but I'm very much not a Pesach baby. I just really like ice cream and meringues! Ideally both together.

11 Nissan is a few days before Pesach :)

I make the LMP with a pesach crust. I think I used a failed pesach cake once. Or an almond crust.

Pavlova is also an excellent idea!

If you like chocolate I have a very rich chocolate cake torte thing, its my go to birthday cake for my husband even though his birthday is not on pesach. You could do that cut in the shape of your age decorated with mini meringes and fruit.

heres the cake

(Passover) Chocolate Torte: we eat it all year !

Ingredients:

6 oz chocolate - any kind (I used the bag of Oppenheimer's pareve choc chips which are delicious)
1/2 cup oil, any kind

Melt. If you have a big enough pan, you can mix the cake in there too.

3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt, any kind
1-2 tsp coffee, optional
3 eggs
1/2 cup cocoa powder

Add the above ingredients, mix thoroughly, and bake in small (8" round) greased pan for half an hour at 350 deg.

(I just quadrupled the recipe and baked it in 2 9 by 13 shallow pans.)

YOU WILL JUST LOVE THIS CAKE !!!!!!

I'm a Pesach baby and I usually just shift if it's a seder night (we don't keep kosher so it's just the seder nights that I'd avoid).

But I LOVE lemon meringue any time of year so I'd do that if I wanted to do something that exact day.

Does it rise at all?

I’m wondering how it would come out if the eggs were separated and the whites beaten with the sugar, and then folded into the mixture of the other ingredients.

I’m thinking about somehow combining this with @SpuytenDuyvil‘s hazlenut meringues.

I third Pavlova suggestions. Do you specifically want a risen cake recipe? I definitely have recipes that are sponge cakes and rise and are gluten free (potato flour)

That chocolate torte sounds lush! Got to try that one...

There's an amazing Claudia Roden cake that involves boiling a whole orange - that makes it sound fiddly but it's somehow not? Just takes a bit of time. Turns out so tasty and moist, like a cross between a sweet cake and an orange flavoured sponge pudding. Uses almond flour, afair (wow having a nut allergy must make Pesach cooking more of a challenge!). Can dig out the recipe if you like?

Ah! Found it in the Observer archive, for anyone interested

www.theguardian.com/food/2020/sep/28/claudia-rodens-orange-and-almond-cake

@TheGoldenApplesOfTheSun Do you use baking powder during Pesach? The only leaveners I use are eggs. And, yes, having a guest with the nut allergy during Pesach is crazy. There are nuts everywhere.

Last year I managed to make a cake that was nut, dairy, wheat, potato and chocolate free. A very nice cake that is now part of my regular repertoire!

But it was a plain, sweet sponge and I want something with a bit more va-va-voom this year.

I made CR’s boiled orange cake many years ago, and was very disappointed. I can’t remember why exactly, but I think we just didn’t really like the taste.

no it doesn't really rise. Its kind of torte like and very dense and chocolaty. Its actually too chocolaty for me but my husband loves it. And its very easy to make. You could probably try it with butter.

I’d go for a pavlova!
My son was born erev pesach so his bday often falls on seder night (he’s an adult now) and meringue would be the go-to.

just to point out the choc torte is from a us website so half the degrees. Don't try baking at 350c, it won't be very nice. 170c should be ok, depending on your oven.

I also tried the CR orange cake last year. It was ok, not my favourite flavour, but not a fan of almonds and orange flavour cakes.

Wait, you don’t use baking powder? Half my cake recipes for Pesach rely on it!

… I want to go check if it’s kosher for passover but I’d kinda rather not know if it isn’t. Break it to me gently, anyone here who knows more about this than me! I had enough of a panic finding out that the pack of baking powder I wanted to use one year somehow also contained flour (?!) mercifully before I tipped it into the actual cake mix …

@TheGoldenApplesOfTheSun Well, I was raised in a strict Conservative (do you call this United?) household in a synagogue of German refugees. No one never used any leavening other than eggs. I am 71 this week and I have never used anything other. I think the more modern streams might not care about chemical leavening but I feel uncomfortable about it. As long as we try to cling to the tradition as much as we can, everyone has to find their own way, I think.

Fair enough - lovely to hear you’re upholding your family traditions. The recipes you shared both look delicious with no need for baking powder. Maybe I should branch out! Also congratulations on turning 71 🥳

I was brought up observant United Synagogue, with Hassidic extended family, and we also used only egg whites for raising cakes. But I understood that to be because bicarb and baking powder in those days had wheat flour or cornflour in it. Wheat-free bicarb and baking powder have been readily available for many years, so maybe there is a generation of observant Jews who feel comfortable using them. After all, chametz is natural fermentation such as yeast and vinegar, not chemical reagents.

Growing up, my family did not eat kitniot. But now, with so many medical dietary restrictions in our family, also avoiding chemical raising agents and kitniot would leave Pesach looking more like Yom Kippur!