Get Your Gourmet Desserts On During Passover

Sick of the leftover brisket and matzah ball soup? Miss your gourmet fare during this very old-world holiday? Well, we’ll try to cure your mid-Passover blues.

Get rid of those tired fake-coconut flavored macaroons from your childhood and check out Madagascar vanilla bean, lemon zest or mini chocolate chip versions (pictured above) from Platine Cookies.

Since flour is a no-no, try a flourless chocolate cake, which turns out half brownie and half chocolate cake and not at all like those Manischewitz cake mixes (also from Platine).

And if you’re feeling extra domestic during the weekend, make your own sweet.

Chocolate Beet Coconut Cake with Chocolate Icing

Kosher for Passover, Makes 16 ample servings
From Levana Kirschenbaum

Cake:
4 egg whites
Good pinch salt
1 ½ cups sugar
4 egg yolks
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups natural canned beets, drained, juice reserved, mashed with a potato masher
2 cups Osem Matza Cake Meal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup juice from the canned beets (add a little water to complete 1 cup if necessary)
1 cup cocoa powder
1 ½ cups unsweetened grated coconut, packed

Icing:
1 cup real semisweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon oil

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Make the cake: With an electric mixer, whip the egg whites and salt at high speed until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually and whip until stiff. Switch to low speed and, allowing only enough time to combine the ingredients, beat in one ingredient at a time, just a few seconds each time—the yolks, then the oil, etc., until all ingredients are incorporated. Pour the batter into a greased tube pan or a 10-inch round pan or 11-by-14-inch pan, and bake for 1 hour or until the point of a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Make the icing: Melt the chocolate chips with the oil on a very low flame until melted (microwave OK). Drizzle slowly and steadily over the cake until the whole top of the cake is covered. Let the cake cool.

(Photos: Platine)