So I’m going to a seder tomorrow night, and I’m tasked with bringing some dessert. I wanted to make cookies, but most cookie recipes have either baking powder or baking soda, both of which are (as I understand it) right out.
So I was thinking I might make some chocolate chip cookie dough without the baking powder/soda, and then just bring dough for people to munch on.
Here’s the standard recipe:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks, 1/2 pound) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated [white] sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups (12-ounce package) NESTLE TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
1 cup chopped nuts
Is that passover-kosher without the baking soda?
(And yes, I’m quite aware that actual kosher-keeping people couldn’t eat anything cooked in my kitchen anyhow, but that’s not the point of the current question.)
Thanks
Not if you’re using ordinary, non kosher for passover flour, vanilla extract, or chocolate chips. You’d need to get special passover versions of those things. The baking soda is probably fine, though, passoverwise. Baking soda is kosher for passover.
You may be wrong about baking soda/powder. There is rabbinical debate over whether all leavening agents are prohibited during Passover, or whether only yeast is prohibited. Opinions vary depending on sect, tradition etc. However, Manishewitz, Kedem and other manufacturers leaven their egg kichel (they’re kind of big, puffy oyster crackers with big crunchy lumps of sugar all over the top) with baking soda.
Since opinions vary so widely, the best thing to do is call and ask the hosts.
BTW-
Some nuts are prohibited during passover.
Ashkenazim (Jews of the European tradition) do not eat corn during Passover. I don’t know if Nestle’s morsels are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, but most chocolate is. Sephardim (Jews of the Spanish/Mediterranean tradition) do eat corn during Passover.
Seders tend to involve meat dishes, which means that some people may object to a dessert containing dairy products or simply not be able to eat it. Substituting margarine might not work since #1 most margarines contain dairy products (I’ve read the ingredients. I can’t believe it’s not butter because the label lists butter) #2 margarine is corn oil, forbidden to Ashkenazim during Passover.
My advice is to find a kosher for Passover, non dairy recipe for macaroons.
Why not just make no bake cookies? There are lots of recipies out there that don’t use baking powder or baking soda. Like this one for example. I clicked on several recipies from this page, as well as this page, and all of them were appropriate too, so you have a good deal of choice as to flavor. Good luck.
Just saw what DocCathode said about nuts, so maybe not all of the recipies will work. Sorry. :o Still, hopefully there is a cookie in those pages you could make for the occasion?
I looked at a few more of the recipies, and found this one, which seems quite tasty. I don’t know if honey would be considered Kosher or not, nor the rest of the ingredients, but I thought I’d point out this cookie for consideration.
Honey is fine. Frankly, this confuses the heck out of me. When frying in vegetable oil, remember that OTTOMH corn, peanut, and a few others are not kosher for Passover.
Kosher-for-Passover cookies (which are rarely good IMO) never (in my experience) start with flour. They would instead start from matzo meal or something like that. If I were you I would bring store-bought Passover desserts or cake rather than risk making people uncomfortable with baked-from-flour pastries on Passover. Either that, or look up a recipe specifically meant to be for Passover.
Chocolate would generally need to be hechshered (specifically indicated as Kosher for Passover). Real vanilla is not kosher for Passover (extracted from a bean that qualifies as a prohibited food for Ashkenazim).
Taking JHW3’s suggestion, I did a search for Passover recipies and found this page, which has cookies. (Including “Mock Oatmeal Drop” cookies.) I didn’t realize that flour wasn’t Kosher for Passover until today, but I’m filing that fact away, hopefully it will “stick” and I’ll not make a similar mistake again.
Hmmm, thanks for the advice everyone. I’ll try something from the koshercooking.com website.
(And I’m pretty sure that no one attending actual keeps kosher at all or really cares, it’s more the principle of the thing. So if I put due dilligence into TRYING to make it kosher, and fail, no one will mind.)
What about asking the hosts for advice on what to do? Wouldn’t that be better than trying to guess what the guests may or may not think about keeping kosher?
Just FTR, if your hosts are serious about it (which you said they are not), they probably won’t eat anything from a non kashered kitchen, anyway, no matter how careful you are. Definitely best to go with the bought stuff.
Now, its a bit late since I imagine you are already over and done with the seder (unless you are doing night #2), but the easiest thing if you are set on baking is to go to a grocery store with a reasonable selection of kosher-for-passover stuff, buy a box of those (awful) Manischewitz brownies, which come with their own aluminum pan and everything, mix it up and bake it.
