Blintzes like Bubby's

I can't help but think of food when I think of my grandparents.  I guess that's normal.  Though you might not know it to look at some of my family members, we are a very food oriented group.  If you ask my mom how a simcha or Shabbat was, you will likely get the full menu as a response, along with a thoughtful critique.  My camera and phone have as many or more pictures of food than of my family (I know, shame on me...).  And my dear husband and I have grocery shopping as our regular date, just the two of us, along with our favorite cashier, produce guy, and the repeating cast of characters on our same shopping schedule.  Very romantic.

Food does carry strong memory triggers.  I remember my cousin Jomo's bar mitzvah (31 years ago!) not just for the wonderful family time and the Rocky Mountain tourist experiences, but for the food: my first encounter with honey-mustard chicken - made with Plochman's mustard; using oatmeal as a binder for hamburgers; and experiencing a simcha where the baalat simcha (my aunt) did most of the cooking.  I remember attending my friend's wedding, when I was in my first trimester with my oldest daughter, and though I was overwhelmed with (not just in the) morning sickness most of the time, the stir-fried vegetables with ginger made me feel better and made me want to learn to cook with ingredients I had not used before.  (I can't believe I was ever so young or culinarily limited that I thought ginger was an exotic spice!)

My strongest food memory of my father's mother, my Florida Bubby, was making chremslach (deep fried potato puffs) with her on Pesach mornings, before the yom tov lunch.  We used a Mouli grater to shred the cooked potatoes - leftover from the karpas - and then mixed in salt and beaten eggs, always judging the recipe by feel to see if we had added the right amount.  Then we would deep fry the dumplings in a deep pot of nasty Pesach oil, and eat them with cherry jam, sour cream, or salt.

The irony of my food memories, though, is that many of them are idealized.  I have such warm feelings toward spending the time with my Bubby and making the chremslach, but absolutely no desire to make or eat them myself, now.  I would rather go to shul than be "enslaved" to the kitchen on Pesach, and deep frying is not my friend.  I remember my New Jersey Bubby's (Bubby Sarah) chicken soup as the all time best, but I am not sure if it was as delicious as I remember, or if I had always been striving to make mine as good as something that wasn't real.

There are a few foods like that with Bubby Sarah - her honey chiffon cake, rolash (like a babka), rugelach, cherry cake.  Maybe even her blintzes.  I loved her blintzes.  Bubby made a sweet, heftier-than-most blintz leaf with a delicious farmer cheese filling.  She also made potato blintzes with the same sweet bletlach, which, honestly, were kind of weird.  Don't try it at home. At some point, it must have been that someone she respected and admired told Bubby that adding some orange marmalade to the cheese blintz filling would make them taste even better.  They were wrong, but the bitter orange was always there from that point on.

Eventually, when the supply line of frozen blintzes she gave me started to slow down, I asked Bubby for her recipe.  In her inimitable half-English, half-Yiddish style, she told me to put four eggs in the blender, then half a blender of miluch (milk), a few spoons of tzucker (sugar), a little oil, a "glayzel" (meaning glass, literally the glass cup that had formerly housed a yahrzeit candle) of flour, a bissel zaltz (salt).  For the filling, take half of the giant brick of farmer cheese that my Zeidy would bring from the wholesaler ("Don't buy it yourself, Dvoyraleh, it's too expensive"), and add eggs and sugar.

It took a little work to make a recipe with measurements out of those instructions.  But I managed to develop it into something that is more or less her blintzes, and I am sharing with you today, if you managed to get all the way to the bottom of the page with all my reminiscing.  I guess I am trying to make up for a year of bloggy silence...

Bubby Sarah's Blintzes
Yields 22-24 blintzes

Ingredients
For leaves:
6 eggs
2 1/4 cups milk
6 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons oil
1 1/2 cups flour
pinch salt
a teaspoon of vanilla (I have that on the written instructions, though I find it hard to believe Bubby used it!)

Combine the ingredients in a blender jar and mix until fully combined.  You may want to let it rest for a few hours before frying the leaves, but then again, you might not.

Filling:
2 pounds of farmer cheese (in Israel, 1 kilo of Tuv Taam or C'naan cheese.  I had only 3/4 of a kilo of Tuv Taam, so I added in cottage cheese to make up the difference.
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup sugar
cinnamon, to taste
vanilla, to taste

Combine all ingredients well.  My bubby used to mash the cheese with a potato masher, but if you don't have a dairy one (or you get old and flaky and forget that detail), you can just mix with a spoon or fork.

Heat a nonstick skillet or crepe pan over medium heat.  Lightly oil (I wipe the pan with a paper towel dipped in a bit of canola oil - before beginning to fry, and after every couple of leaves. Use about 1/4 cup of batter for each leaf, swirling to cover the entire surface. Cook until the top is dry and slightly inflated in spots from underneath. There is no need to fry the other side! Remove to a plate. 

Repeat, stacking the leaves, until all the batter is used.  When you are done, flip the stack.  Just trust me - it makes the leaves easier to deal with.

Lay a leaf down, brown side up, on a large plate or board.  Place a couple of spoonfuls of filling in a line on the leaf, about and inch and a half up from the bottom edge, filling only the center third of the leaf.  It should look like a face with an unsmiling mouth (no eyes).  Fold up the bottom edge to cover the cheese, then fold over the sides like you are making an envelope.  Roll up from the bottom to create your blintz shape.  Repeat until all the leaves and/or filling is gone, whichever comes first.

You can individually wrap the blintzes at this point and freeze them, or you can fry them immediately.

Fry over medium low heat until golden brown on each side. 

Allow to cool for a couple of minutes to let the cheese set up, then enjoy!!

Tortilla Soup, Ole! Plus May Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

This month's Kosher Connection theme is croutons.  Croutons are delicious, crunchy, fun to eat, generally not so good for you.  But I love them - who doesn't, really?  There is nothing yummier than homemade croutons: a diced loaf of crusty bread, tossed with butter or oil and amazing seasonings, toasted until perfectly crisp on the outside, with a little chew on the inside, so delicious and addictive, and then you put them in some incredibly flavorful soup or a beautiful salad, mmmmm...

Sorry, distracted.  Where was I again?  Oh, yeah, right.  I figure that as a baker, I contribute to not such healthy eating for some folks, so I have to be more careful when it comes to the courses preceding dessert.  That's why I went with a lighter style crouton - tortilla crisps.  No frying here, and the only added fat is cooking spray.  No seasoning is added, though still delicious.  And they top off a bold and hearty soup, which, oddly enough, is beloved by every single member of my family.  How often does that happen?!

Tortilla Soup

Tortilla Crisps
Ingredients:
3 flour tortillas
Cooking Spray

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray both sides of the tortillas with a light coating of cooking spray.  Cut tortillas into 1/2" by  1 1/2" strips.  Spread into a single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake for 5 - 10 minutes, tossing about 3 minutes through for even cooking.  Remove from oven when they are toasted and LIGHTLY colored.  Set aside to cool.

Soup
Ingredients:
2 medium onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
canola oil
1 red pepper, diced
1/2 yellow pepper, diced
1 green hot pepper, ribs and seeds removed, finely diced (be super careful about touching anything after dicing the hot peppers! Keep your hands away from your eyes, nose, mouth, children... And even if you wear gloves, remember that the cutting board may retain the spicy heat, so be careful when you wash it)
14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon each salt, cumin, and chili powder (the seasoning amounts are very subjective - feel free to adjust to your preference!)
8 cups chicken stock (use water and chicken soup powder in a pinch) + 1 cup water
1 cup frozen corn
2 chicken breasts, diced
1 can black, kidney, or chili beans, drained and rinsed

Saute onions and garlic in a small amount of canola oil until onions and translucent and tender. Add in red, yellow, and hot peppers and saute for 2 more minutes, until beginning to soften. Add in the tomatoes (drained or not, depending if you prefer a redder or less red soup, really not that important unless you have a child who only likes yellow soup. I wish I had made that up, but yeah, got one or two of those.), and seasoning and stir. Then add in chicken stock and water and bring just to a boil and then lower. Allow to simmer for about 20-25 minutes. Add in frozen corn and diced chicken and simmer for about 10 minutes, then add in drained beans and simmer until everything is just heated through.  Adjust seasoning and serve, sprinkling each bowl with a handful of tortilla crisps.  Serve additional crisps on the side, because they're so good.

And when you've had your fill of this delicious soup, check out what all the other talented cooks have contributed to this month's linkup!

Ridiculous Hot Dog Cookies for Purim - and Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

Purim is a happy, carefree holiday.  If you're a kid, that is.  Costumes, candy, parties, and the cessation of education for at least two weeks.  It's awesome. 

But I get stressed out by this holiday, though I didn't used to.  I finally understood what my problem was recently, when a friend spelled it out for me.  You see, three years ago, we made awesome mishloach manot.  And I can't ever top it, so now I have put myself in a position where expectations are high, and I let everyone, especially myself, down when I give a lame old MM.

So what was so great about that year's MM?  Well, I finally relented and went with a theme beyond "it's Purim, here's some food."  Our theme was fast food, and everything (almost) was cookies and cake.  We made hamburgers,

hot dogs,

French fries with ketchup,

ice cream sundaes,

and chocolate milk - okay, that was real. And if I can't ever live the experience down, well, maybe you can share in my suffering as I share the recipe for the hot dog cookies.  They were bookmarked in my browser in a file called "ridiculous," which, obviously, they are, but you never know when a recipe like this could come in handy.  (I don't actually hve any ideas right now for when that could be, but I am sure they'll come to me.)  So I throw down the gauntlet: make these cookies for your Mishloach Manot, but keep in mind that they will impress your friends and and then everyone will expect to be wowed next year too!

As for me, I am sure we will come up with something, but if you have any great ideas for a theme for us that's not too complicated, we'd love to hear it!

Hot Dog Cookies
Adapted from TLC

Ingredients:
150 grams softened margarine (1 1/2 sticks or 3/4 cup)
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
red gel food coloring
1/2 teaspoon cocoa
Yellow and/or red buttercream frosting or royal icing

Directions:
Cream margarine with sugars.  Beat in egg yolk.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Remove 1/3 of the dough and knead in a small amount of the red gel food color and the cocoa. Chill both sections well, at least a few hours or overnight.  Remove the uncolored dough, leaving the rest in the fridge, and divide into approximately 12 pieces.  Form each one into a long cylinder, then use the side of your hand to form an indentation (mimicking the shape of a hot dog bun).  Divide the colored dough into 12, and form each piece into a hot dog shape, then place each one in a "bun."

Chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 350.  Bake for 15-17 minutes, until "buns" are lightly browned on the edges. 

When fully cool, put your frosting or icing in a decorating bag with a small round tip, and apply a squiggle of "mustard" or "ketchup" or both.  If you are so inclined, you can use things like cut-up gummy candies and shredded coconut to add "relish" or "onions."  With or without the additions, they will be adorable. Enjoy!

 

Wishing you all a happy and joyous Purim - and fun with the preparations!

And now for some real Mishloach Manot inspiration, check out the rest of this month's Kosher Connection recipes!

Sacher Torte Sandwiches - January Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

I was trying to be super-creative for this one, trying to think outside the box.  I mean, I love miniatures.  I make mini-desserts, I love when foods are made single serving, what's not to love.  But then I realized two important things. One, my brain does not work in a straight line.  I don't really think a box could contain the leaps and bounds and stretches my mind makes when I think about things.  Second, I am always making miniatures.  What are cookies if not miniature desserts?

So instead of something totally different, I thought I would share my process with you.  This is how Dvora's Cookie Creations comes up with a new flavor.

1.  Have a food craving.
2.  If it's healthy, indulge it.
3.  If it's for something sweet, think about how the flavors I am dying for can be translated into a cookie form.

That's it.  There's not much of that "Cupcake Wars" notion of how can I fit a disgusting ingredient into a dessert.  I draw the line at that.  No cheese curls or crispy salmon skin in my desserts.  But this concept of translation has worked for me.  Thus, the orange-cranberry-white chocolate cookies (started with Creamsicles), the apricot white chocolate cookies (chocolate dipped dried fruit), the pecan shortbread (pecan pie), the samoa sandwiches (Girl Scout cookies), the Chunky Monkey bars (ice cream!! - still working on the Chubby Hubby squares), and today's example, the Sacher Torte sandwich.

So let's talk cake for a minute.   I love cake of all kinds.  It's delicious, or should be.  But there's so much of it.  Even a little 6-inch cake is too many servings to just have lying around.  A cookie, however, is portion-controlled.  You can make some, freeze the rest of the dough, eat one, and put the other cookies aside for Shabbat or another occasion that calls for some dessert.

Sacher Torte is a traditional Austrian pastry; two layers of chocolate sponge sandwiching apricot preserves, covered in chocolate glaze.  Mmmmm.  So to translate this into cookie-hood, I decided to go the sandwich cookie route (which, let's face it, I do a lot of.  It just seems a great way to layer flavors and textures.).  I started with a chocolate but not excessively chocolatey roll out cookie, to which I added almond extract - not so authentic, but definitely screams Vienna to me.  I wanted one with a fair amount of leavening, so the cookies would puff up to resemble the texture (sort of) of sponge cake.  I cut the well-chilled dough into circles, cutting out a small circle from the center of half of the cookies to provide a window into the filling. 

After baking, I paired off the cookies, one solid and one with a peek-through, so that similar sized cookies fit together.  It's one of those annoyances that even cookies cut with a cutter are never all precisely the same, so it's just gotta be done.  I covered the backs of the solid cookies with apricot preserves, then topped them with the cut-out cookies.  Instead of coating the whole thing with chocolate, I chose to drizzle a zig-zag of chocolate across the cookies, as I felt a complete or even partial dunking would overpower the apricot and almond flavors.  And a drizzle is always pretty...

So there you have it, an actual cookie recipe from me.  It doesn't happen too often, so enjoy!

Sacher Torte Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients:
200 grams margarine, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

good quality apricot preserves
100 grams chocolate chips or baking chocolate
1 teaspoon oil

Directions:
Cream margarine with sugar.  Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla.  Sift together cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt, and add to creamed mixture.  Divide dough into three disks, wrap each in plastic wrap, and chill well, at least one hours.  Preheat oven to 350 F.  Roll out dough on well-floured surface, about 1/8" thick. using a 2" round cutter, cut circles.  Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Gather up scraps and re-roll.  Cut out a small (1/3 - 1/2") circle from the center of half the cookies.  Bake for about 7 minutes.  Cool and pair cookies, one whole and one cut-out, by matching sizes.  On the underside of the whole cookies, spread apricot preserves.  Top with a cut-out cookie.  Spread cookies out on a fresh piece of parchment.  Melt chocolate with oil in microwave on low power.  Pour into a disposable decorating bag or heavy duty ziploc bag.  Twist shut, and cut off tip/corner.  Drizzle chocolate onto cookies.  Let chocolate set, and - b'tayavon!

Bread Pudding - November Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

 

The theme for this month's linkup is Thanksgiving related - Stuffing.  The gauntlet was definitely thrown down for us dessert-y people, so I felt that I could not get away with another savory, defiantly non-dessert recipe.  I let my mind run amok, as it is wont to do anyway, and went on a whole stream of consciousness adventure.  Stuffed cookies, stuffed cupcakes, a cake with something fabulous hidden in the middle....the possibilities seemed endless.  But then work got intense, and the world got scary.  Elections, hurricanes, nor'easters - and none of that even where we live!  And now, we are embroiled in an unfortunate but utterly necessary military operation, and the world is a little scarier and colder place than it was before.

So the drifting in my brain became focused on two things: 1. the universal need for comfort food, and 2. figuring out what the sweet counterpart to savory stuffing would be.  Well, duh, if stuffing is stale bread with liquids, vegetables, and seasoning, then the sweet version is bread pudding!!  And let's be honest, call it challah kugel and serve it as a side-dish; call it bread pudding and it's dessert (yummy with Creme Anglaise!!).  And if you want to go all out, serve it for breakfast with some maple syrup and it's a fabulous French Toast souffle.  I get raves for this dish, especially from my family, who fight over the last piece...

Is it a side dish?  A dessert? Breakfast? Brunch? All of the above!!

Like almost all recipes I present to you, this is just a launching pad - feel free to change up the dried or fresh fruit components, or leave them out altogether.  Use any leftover challah you have, though I am partial to my own recipe, which happens to have a very soft crust, making it less crucial to trim the challah.  Make the seasoning more exotic, like cardamom and ginger, or more homey, with nutmeg and cloves in addition to the cinnamon.  Make the dish bigger, make it smaller, just incrementally adjust the amount of bread and the amount of custard.  This is a rather rustic looking dish, so don't sweat making it look perfect.  Just enjoy!

Sweet Bread Pudding
Ingredients:
8 cups cubed day-old challah, crusts removed
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced
1/2 cup raisins
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt
2 cups soy milk or non-dairy creamer or a combination of the two (use real dairy milk for a milchig/chalavi version)

Directions:
Toss the challah cubes with the diced apple and raisins.  Place in a greased oven to table baking pan.

Beat together the eggs with the sugar until the sugar is fully dissolved.  Add in the the vanilla, cinnamon, and salt, then slowly whisk in the soy milk or creamer to make a custard mixture. Pour this custard over the challah cubes, making sure to evenly distribute it.

Press down lightly to make sure all of the cubes were moistened.  Turn the oven on to 350 and let the challah soak while it preheats. 

Bake for about 45 - 50 minutes, until top is lightly browned.

Enjoy!

Now before I send you to see all the other delicious contributions to this month's link-up, please keep in your minds, hearts, and prayers the brave soldiers of the IDF, as well as the residents of the South of Israel, and the entire Home Front.  May we all be blessed to live in peace and security.

Dvora

Orange Soup - Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

Ahh, root vegetables.  This month's theme brings to mind autumn.  Caramelized roasted vegetables, hearty stews, warming soups.  It all sounds wonderful, like fall foliage, roaring fires, warm slippers, and fleece blankets.

Well, it would, if only we actually had a fall season here.  It's still very much summer outside, with today's forecast hitting around 90.  The A/C is on, flip-flops are the footwear of preference, and it's too warm to think about running the oven or standing over the stove for a long time.

And yet, my family is still a bunch of soup lovers.  We have chicken soup each and every Friday night of the year.  One daughter even enters the house on a regular basis with the delightful greeting, "Did you make soup?  Oh, no?  (insert sad and pensive face here)... Maybe I'll make some myself (put upon look)."  Oh, my poor sweetie, I was too busy eating bon-bons and polishing my toenails, while the elves were busy taking care of the housework and running my business.  But I digress...

So tonight we are having soup, and so can you, whether it's autumnal or or not (yet).  "Orange soup" is an Israeli classic, a pureed soup made of a variety of orange vegetables.  It can be sweet or savory, depending on the other components, from the added vegetables to the seasonings.  This version, which in its original form came from my friend Shoshana, is an easy and delicious addition to your table any time.  It stars carrots and sweet potatoes, along with pumpkin, zucchini, onions, and garlic.  It tastes great and it's not so heavy that you feel overheated just from eating it.  There is no sauteeing, no hard work aside from peeling and cutting.  And it cooks rather quickly (easy enough for a teenager to put together after school!).  Shoshana makes this in a meaty version, browning some stew meat before adding the other ingredients, and then removing the meat and some of the carrot slices before pureeing.  Because we love to have soup on hand all the time, I turned this into a pareve version, adding a bit of cumin for a smoky, beefy background flavor.  If you have beef flavored soup powder, it is a tasty enhancement, but we just don't find it too often on the grocery shelves in our part of the world.  For a special accent, you can add knaidlach, which makes this extra-enticing for my youngest child, who believes all things are better with matzah balls. Garlic croutons are great with this as well.  Feel free to play with the quantities and proportions of vegetables to suit your taste and your refrigerator!

Orange Soup

Ingredients:
2 onions
1 head garlic (If you are fresh garlic-phobic, you can add in a few frozen cubes instead)
4 carrots
2 zucchini
2 sweet potatoes
small chunk pumpkin (optional)
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon beef soup powder (optional)
several shakes cumin

Directions:
Peel and chop onions, carrots, zucchini, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin.  Peel cloves of garlic.  Place all ingredients into stockpot, and add water to cover.

That's it, all the hard work is done!

 

Bring to a boil, then simmer until vegetables are very tender.  Puree with an immersion blender. 

To add knaidlach:
NOTE - these are not the matzah balls we add to the Friday night chicken soup.  Those are delicate things of beauty, with a carefully combined batter that gets a rest in the refrigerator to let the matzah meal absorb the other ingredients.  It is then gently rolled into balls and dropped into a pot of boiling water flavored with salt and chicken boullion, and cooked until perfectly round, light, and fluffy.  These are not them.  These are rustic knaidlach, a little chewier and heartier, quickly mixed and dropped into the simmering soup by teeny tiny spoonful.
Mix together
1 egg
1/4 cup matzah meal
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Drop into simmering soup by teaspoonful, and cook about 10 minutes.  Enjoy!

Now that you can make your soup and eat it too, check out the other Root Vegetable recipes on the Kosher Connection this month.  And leave a comment to tell us what you thought!

The Queen of Gluten Free

Before we made aliyah, celiac disease (or as we knew it to be called, celiac sprue), was barely known to us.  David's cousin has it, but she was literally our only encounter with the disease.  Then we moved, and while at first we only knew a small handful of people with celiac, the number of sufferers has increased dramatically over the last six years.  And not only do people with celiac have to avoid gluten, but we know other people who avoid gluten religiously for a variety of health reasons.

Gluten, for the uninitiated, is a protein found in wheat and related species, and it's what gives dough its elasticity. For people with celiac disease, gluten can cause many unpleasant, very serious, and long-reaching consequences.  While it was not as well known before, more celiac disease is being diagnosed, and the levels of gluten in flour has risen in the last decades, causing people increased sensitivity (or so I have been told). I myself was tested for celiac this year, thanks to a lifetime of stomach issues, and while the test was negative, the wait for results gave me a lot of food for thought, about what I would do with my business if the result was positive.

The thing is, gluten is in a lot of foods. Surprising and unexpected foods. So it can be hard to avoid. But the amazing thing to me was that most cake decorating ingredients are actually gluten free, so to make a beautiful cake that has no gluten, you just need to find a great cake recipe. That I did with a little help from a few friends with family members with celiac. Since I started working on these GF recipes, I am sort of feeling like that is the most popular thing I do.  Believe me, the smiles I get from producing a cake or cupcakes that actually taste good - even to wheat eaters! - makes me feel so good!  I love knowing that a person who might not otherwise have had a cake to enhance their celebration will now get to indulge just like the rest of us.  I can't share the recipes with you (so far just chocolate and vanilla cake) as it's my livelihood we are talking about here, but I can show you what we have created. It's all GF!!

60th birthday celebration

Engagement party

Multiple birthday celebration

Engagement

Bat mitzvah dessert buffet

Bat mitzvah

 

17th birthday celebration

 

Sheva brachot

5th birthday celebration

 

But to make it up to you, I am going to give you a GF recipe - for the most delicious brownies ever.  So why am I sharing davka this recipe with you?  Because to be quite honest, the ingredients in this recipe are rather pricey (an entire pound of bittersweet chocolate, for starters), so I don't think selling them would ever be worthwhile.  I made them this summer for my GF sister and brother-in-law, and no one at the table missed the gluten.

 

Gluten Free Brownies 

adapted from Pragmatic Attic

Ingredients:
6 tablespoons margarine (75 grams in Israel)
5 tablespoons canola oil
16 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I prefer Vered HaGalil for daily use, but check with your gluten-free person about what chocolates are okay for them - here, Carmit 60% seems to be considered the "cleanest", though many brands claim to have less than 20ppm, which is the gold standard) or semi-sweet, or a combination - whatever you favor
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 tablespoons cocoa
6 tablespoons corn starch, called cornflour in Israel (or potato starch - kemach tapuchei adama)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons instant coffee powder
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.
Line an 9x13 pan with foil then parchment paper extending over the ends for ease of removal after baking. Spray exposed foil with cooking spray.
Melt together the chocolate and margarine, either on the stove top over a very low heat, stirring frequently, or in the microwave on a half power setting. when the chocolate and margarine are melted, add in the oil, then the sugar, stirring well. Add the eggs, one at a time, then add the salt.
In a small bowl, combine the cocoa powder, coffee powder andstarch to evenly combine. Add to the melted chocolate mixture and mix vigorously to evenly combine.
Mix vigorously until the batter is smooth and well combine.  Pour into the prepared pan and spread evenly with an offset spatula.Bake for about 35 minutes, checking beginning at about 25 minutes. Brownies are done when an inserted toothpick comes out nearly clean, with just a few moist crumbs.  Cool completely.  Use the parchment paper to aid in removal from pan, and cut into squares - these are very rich, so 32 brownies is a fair number.

Whether you avoid gluten or not, ENJOY!

Dvora