This traditional Rosh ha-Shana dessert was one of my mom’s favorite. She never wrote down the recipe, and every store bought honey cake I tried in Israel was so unimpressive – they were too moist, or too sweet or too heavy, mostly all of the above. As I was leaving Israel my dear friend wrote me his mom’s recipe which I implemented several years later and the result was the closest one or even better than my mom baked (honestly by then I didn’t remember what it was, but I am sure my mom would approve) – it was soft, light, airy, fragrant, full of but not overloaded with walnuts, melting in your mouth. Absolutely fantastic with coffee, and worth documenting. So here it is … I will still keep that small piece of paper with my friend’s handwriting as long as I live.

Ingredients:

• 5 eggs at room temperature
• Sugar – 3/4 cup
• Honey – 1 cup
• Baking soda – 1 tsp
• Sour cream – 1/2 cup
• Milk – 1/2 cup
• Vegetable oil ( I use light olive oil) – 2-3 tbsp
• Flour – 2.5 cups
• Salt – 1/2 tsp
• Ground ginger – 1 tbsp (my addition to the original recipe)
• Walnuts – 1 cup

Directions:

• Separate yolks from white
• In big bowl whisk egg yolks with honey
• Add sour cream and vegetable oil, keep whisking
• Add milk and whisk again
• Gradually mix in flour mixed with soda
• Add walnuts to batter
• In a separate bowl whip egg whites with 1 cup of sugar with hand mixer
• Gently fold whipped whites into the batter
• Pour batter into greased baking form (batter should be liquid)
• Put into preheated to 375 °F oven
• Bake for 55-60 minutes

These tender cookies are not just a delicious dessert, but can be a great breakfast as they are packed with protein and not loaded with sugar.

Ingredients:

For the filling:

• Walnuts 250 gr
• Sugar 90 gr 1/3 cup
• 1 Egg white
• Vanilla extract 1 tsp
• Optional: lemon zest, pinch of cardamon.

For the pastry:

• All purpose flour 220 gr (1 +3/4 of a cup)
• Butter 100 gr (cold)
• Sour cream 100 gr (1/2 cup)
• 1 Egg yolk
• Baking powder 5 gr (1 tsp)
• Pinch of salt

Directions

• Finely chop (grind) walnuts in the food processor. You can do it with roller pin, place walnuts in plastic bag, but to small crumbles.
• Add sugar, egg white, vanilla extract and mix till everything is well incorporated.
• You can also add lemon zest, cardamon, even pinch of chipotle to make it very fragrant
• For the dough in a big bowl put your flour, pinch of salt, and pieces of cold butter
• Using pastry cutter or a knife cut the butter mixing it evenly with flour till butter is a pea size
• Add baking powder, egg yolk, sour cream
• Mix dough with your hands, make a roll and put it in the fridge for about an hour
• Divide the pastry roll into 3 even parts, do the same with the filling
• Take 1 small roll, dust working surface with some flour and roll it to about 12 inch circle sheet
• Cut the circle into 8 sectors, with your hands split your 1/3 of filling into 8 parts
• Place the filling to the wide end of each sector and make small rolls
• Place rolls onto baking sheet covered with parchment paper
• Repeat with 2 other parts of dough and filling (you will have 24 crescents)
• Put into preheated to 375 °F oven for 35-40 minutes
• Let the cool and dust with confection sugar

It is a serious upgrade of traditional Russian lemon pie (Limonnik). The very rare case when reducing the calories improves the flavor. The calories reduction comes from substituting of the 3rd of the flour with the almond flour (will try to substitute half next time) and as always I put half of the sugar than in the original recipe (the amounts here are post-reduction). It’s still sweet, but much crumblier and interesting, also ginger makes it very fragrant. Hope you bake it soon, it will be great with your cup of tea or coffee.

Ingredients:

for the dough:

• 200 gr (1+2/3 stick) of butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups regular all purpose flour
• 1 cup almond flour
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

for the filling:

• 1 big or 1+1/2 medium lemons ( I took 2 small mayer lemons)
• 2/3 cup of sugar
• small (1 inch size) piece of ginger

Directions:

• In a big bowl place cold butter, flour (all purpose and almond), sugar, salt.
• Cut the butter with pastry cutter (or on a food processor) till butter is pea size
• Add sour cream, egg, continue mixing with a steady spoon
• Switch to hands and kneed the dough till you make it to a ball. Almond flour makes it a little harder to bring together. If it’s too crumbly add 1-2 tbsp of cold water. Or delegate the process to the food processor.
• Divide the dough into 2 unequal part (70/30).
• The smaller part goes to freezer, the bigger one – to a fridge for about an hour

Make a filling by:

• Zest the lemon
• Grind the lemons using a box grater or food processor
• Grind piece of ginger
• Add sugar and mix all together
• Remove lemon seeds from the filling

Bake the pie:

• Cover baking form with the parchment paper
• Take the bigger part of the the dough and using your palms spread it evenly to form a bottom later of the pie with small walls
• Spread the filling over the bottom layer
• Take the smaller part of the dough from the freezer and grind it over the filling evenly, it should be easy.
• Place into preheated to 375 °F oven and bake for about 45-50 min or until golden brown
• 30 min into baking sprinkle the pie with sliced almonds (optional)
• Sprinkle the pie with powdered sugar when it’s room temperature

It has been a royalty of a cake in my family, my mom baked in only on very special occasion – our birthdays or the New Year. It is super rich, no low calories here, but it’s not the richness that makes it exceptional, the flavors are overwhelming. Soft merengue loaded with walnuts between 2 sponge like layers, every layer saturated with icing (we call it cream in Russian). It was very labor intensive at the times when there were no hand mixers, now it just requires some planning and enthusiasm. But it is totally worth it.

Ingredients:

• Butter 300 gr
• Granulated sugar 1/2 cup + 1/2cup
• Confection sugar (granulated sugar can be used instead) – 1 cup
• Sour cream 3/4 cup
• Baking soda 1/2 tsp
• Large eggs 3 + 2
• Flour 1.5 cup + 1 tbsp
• Milk 1.5 cup
• Chopped walnuts – 1 cup

Directions:

The bottom and the top layers:

• 150 gr room temperature butter cream with 1/2 cup of sugar using whisk or a hand mixer.
• Add 3 egg yolks, continue whipping
• Mix soda with sour cream
• Add to the butter and yolks mixture, combine and whisk together
• Gradually add flour till fully incorporated, you can use hand mixer all the way just reduce the speed
• Divide the batter in half place each part into a greased with butter or neutral vegetable oil baking sheet
• Place into preheated to 375 F oven and bake about 25-30 min or until golden brown

For the icing:

• In a saucepan mix 2 egg yolks with 1/2 cup of sugar
• Add 1 tbsp flour, mix to combine
• gradually add 1.5 cup of milk
• Add 150 gr of butter
• Put a pan on a low heat
• Bring a boil stirring constantly till the cream thickens a little

For the middle layer:

• Add a pinch cream of tartar to the egg whites (5 egg whites)
• Beat the whites in a stand mixer or with hand mixer in a big bowl
• Gradually add confection sugar (granulated will work too) while beating
• Beat for another 2-3 minutes till the mixture is glossy
• Carefully fold in chopped walnuts
• Bake in 325 F oven for 35-40 min
• Leave in in the oven for about 30 min after turning the oven off
• Assemble the cake – put one of the sponge layers to the platter, spread the icing, then carefully put the merengue layer, spread the icing, do the same with the top layer.
• Decorate with ground chocolate.
• It has to stay in the room temperature for several hours or overnight for the icing to soak

And good for you! They are nice to have for breakfast with coffee, and they can be a light Thanksgiving dessert.

All done in one big bowl, just make sure it’s big enough. The recipe is for 32-34 cookies, depending on the size you make them.

Ingredients:

• Unsalted Butter (room temperature) – 1 stick (1/2 cup)
• Margarine (room temperature) – 1 stick (1/2 cup) or replace it with another stick of butter
• Granulated sugar – 1/2 cup
• Brown sugar – 1/2 cup
• 1 egg
• All-purpose flour – 2 cups
• Quick or old fashion oats – 2 cups
• Baking soda – 2 tsp
• Ground cinnamon – 2 tsp
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• Solid pack Pumpkin – 1 can (16 oz)
• Pecans, walnuts, cranberries (optional)
• I try to add several pieces of roasted butternut squash or pumpkin, it’s roasted with salt and sage, but adds a lot to the flavor – 1/2 cup.

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 °F
• Cream butter & margarine using hand mixer or a whisker
• Gradually add sugar, continue creaming
• Add an egg, salt, soda, vanilla, cinnamon, beat all together
• Gradually add flour and oats, alternating with the pumpkin, mixing well to combine
• Add your garnish of choice (pecans, walnuts, cranberries, raisins)
• Spoon the dough onto the baking sheet covered with parchment paper
• Bake for 20-25 minutes till golden and still a little soft to the touch
• Sprinkle with confection sugar

Enjoy!