Nitzan's Bat Mitzvah, Shabbat Edition

Returning to where we were several months ago, here is the second half of Nitzan's bat mitzvah - Shabbat. In addition to cookie platters and lemon macarons for dessert for the Shabbat meals, we provided the family and guests with lemon and chocolate mousse cups,

Chocolate cream filled chocolate cupcakes, topped with fondant basketball toppers,

vanilla cream filled vanilla cupcakes topped with buttercream rosettes,

and chocolate cake pops, drizzled with orange tinted white chocolate, to fit the floral/basketball theme.

It was a beautiful Shabbat, filled with family and friends, and wonderful memories for Nitzan and the whole family. We were privileged to be a small part of it! Mazal tov!

Dvora

Ah, Purim, we hardly knew ye

If anyone is wondering, making a bar mitzvah right before Purim kind of eats into the whole Purim celebration thing. I mean, by the time we got over the sheer exhaustion (actually, we still haven't!), it was kind of late to start on an elaborate Mishloach Manot idea, you know, if any ideas had popped into my tired brain. We were certainly not going to pull off anything like last year, much to the chagrin of a few friends and even some of their extended families. I did, however, accept a few jobs that had to be filled to enhance some other people's simchat Purim. First, I baked a whole bunch of these:Hamantaschen, filled with apple, raspberry, apricot, caramel, black currant, and chocolate.

I made various sized Mishloach Manot

smallmedium, and large (really giant!).

Here's another of the giant before wrapping:

I love the little plastic containers full of cookies and hamantaschen on this one - so cute! And lots of yummy cake pops and chocolate bark with dried fruits and nuts.

For the seudah, we are lucky enough to have a seudah tradition with two other families, who were very adamant that we take the year off and not make anything, knowing better than we did how tired we would be (not even figuring on the sick kid who had to get treatment at Terem on Purim night for THREE hours - did I mention our Shabbat Zachor curse? It involves one of our kids throwing up on almost every Shabbat Zachor. This year I was silly enought to think we had beaten it. But it was just a little slow out of the gate, making its presence known shortly after Shabbat.). But they did relent and allow me to contribute to dessert - individual Kahlua cakes and rainbow mini-cupcakes.

These were a couple of items that I had served over the bar mitzvah Shabbat, but now had time to make again and photograph. The seudah was a lot of fun, and we are very blessed!

With all the chaos, Purim came and went and we will look forward to a calmer one next year.

Happy Countdown to Pesach!

Dvora

Naaleh! Naaleh!

First and foremost, a little more parental pride. This month was the infamous Chodesh Irgun, with the B'nei Akiva insanity that makes it something you can not describe to those who have not experienced it. I have waxed poetic about it before, so I will not do so here, but I will share with you the video of Ayelet and her shevet - newly christened "Naaleh" - doing their daglanut. They did an awesome job. It is hard to describe in words, and probably sounds funny, but the emotions that the kids dancing with the flag stirs up are very powerful. Call me an old-fashioned American, but seeing someone wear a flag upsets me to no end. It feels disrespectful. But see a bunch of kids twirling and waving the same flag to rousing music, now that's patriotism! I can't point Ayelet out to you, but she is there in the thick of things. Enjoy! (BTW, if you don't get the full picture in the embedded version, click on it to head straight to youtube for a better view.)

Dani's shevet also did a great job on their dance, and had a fun BA Shabbat. Of course he was chosen to bring a dessert for his arucha shivtit, so we made a giant (11" diameter) chocolate chip cookie drizzled with chocolate. Which we failed to photograph, so I guess things are just about back to normal. And now back to our regularly scheduled life.

Some new mini-desserts made their debuts recently - banana cream pie tartlets - bananas in pastry cream, topped with whipped cream, all in a cutie pie little crust,

mini chocolate cream tarts - a larger crust, chocolate ganache, pastry cream and whipped cream,and lemon raspberry parfaits, lemon mousse layered with white cake and raspberry sauce. So yummy!!

Boston cream cupcakes also made a reappearance, accompanied by some acceptable photography. They look rather unassuming,

but everyone knows you can't judge a book by its cover; you have to open it up and see what's inside.

Then there was the birthday of Josh S., who is possibly the world's biggest whoopie pie fan. Arica ordered him a tray of his faves, topped by a sugar cookie.

Finally, there were cookies. In between all the craziness, painting, rehearsing, no one home for dinner, late classes, early classes, chugim, we still had to make the cookies!

Robin is a friend and a great customer. She is also a woman with a discriminating palate. When she orders cookies, she wants what she loves and she knows what that is - first and foremost Linzer cookies, then she has a few additional favorites. So this week, she had Linzers and alfajores, to make both her and her husband happy.

The regular assortment was delicious too!Chocolate espresso cream wafers, hermit sticks, linzer cookies, double decker brownies, and triple chocolate cookies.

In other news, my baking life has taken a small turn for the better - Dani has been retested for allergies, and CAN eat peanuts. Probably. And I can age five years every time he does, even though nothing happens and he is fine. So go ahead, order peanut butter bites without any guilt or worries! I didn't worry anyway, but I do not want my customers to fret... That news makes sending him off to bar mitzvahs slightly less scary. Which is good, since he has one tomorrow night!

And that's all the fun here. I have several cakes to work on, so my hands will likely be too messy for the keyboard for a few days. Will post a sneak peak IF I have a chance...

Have a great week!

Dvora

On last week's episode...

I think this may be flavor #90 - not entirely certain if that number is 100% accurate, but it's pretty darn close. Chai shortbread sandwiches - tender spiced cookies, sandwiched with chai cream (so good, hard to resist eating straight up from a spoon), sprinkled with lightly sweetened cocoa. They were tasty - and here's how they looked posing with some friends:

After the chai sandwiches, we have Mexican brownies, chocolate thumbprints, whoopie pies, honey pecan squares, and glazed lemon cookies.

Also fun for dessert (we are not all cookies all the time) - mini chocolate trifles, AKA Death by Chocolate.

Kahlua drizzled chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, and whipped cream, topped with chocoalte sprinkles. How pretty on a dessert table, or YOUR table!

Think you can eat just one?

Finally, Happy Birthday to Dani's friend Amit. Amit's mom treated him to his favortie whoopie pies, which were topped off by a birthday cake sugar cookie.

And a close-up for the cookie:Hope it was a very happy birthday!

Dvora