The late British historian, Professor Arnold Toynbee referred to the Jew as “the fossil of history.” How hopelessly wrong the good professor was! How absent his understanding of the real force behind history!

A fossil is inert, dead. Look at tiny Israel, it produces more literature, scientific and technical books per year than the whole Arab world together. Its medical advances save lives all over the world… all this in spite of the constant non stop threats and terrorism emanating from the countries that surround it.

Chanukka is not just a time for latkes and sufganyot, not only do we light candles but families come together in ways not always apparent on regular days. To remember our past, to pay homage to the people we are, to celebrate our future we looked for fun items at Kosherfest, items that would help bring the true message of Chanukka alive. We found these 3D cupkake and cake molds in the shape of dreidels from The Kosher Cook. Bake together with your child, it’s fun, it’s educational and it binds both of you. The laughs, the hugs, the delight, the love, those are all part of the message and the rejoicing of Chanukka.

Dreidel Cake mold

3D Dreidel mold

After using the 3D Dreidel mold – we used a cake mix, Duncan Hines’ Devils Food – we put the pieces together and got these results:

Delicious dreidel cupcakes!

The one on the left was decorated with Nut Crunch, the one on the right with Assorted Nonpareils. Not bad!

These molds are available on line at The Kosher Cook, at your favorite Judaica store and kosher supermarkets. Check out the website, they have lots of fun and interesting items. Enjoy cooking with your children and as you light the oil on the menorah rekindle the light of love in your and your child’s heart.

If anyone cares to send us some pictures of things they’ve done with their children, we’ll gladly post them on these pages.

Please send them to: kosherscene@gmail.com

SYR

golden coral – statement bib… beauboutique $30.00	set of four baking molds FlaxandSpindle $10.00
Knuckle Ring Ornate Swirls V… kiamichi7 $20.00	Jersey Top toohoi $54.00
Vintage Butter Paddle unExpectedParT… $20.00	Mellow Meadow original oil … HandmadeHelp $200.00
Large ceramic hen on nest st… jawaddel $26.50	Vintage Hot Basket by Salton 4EyesAndEars $12.50
Pumpkin Souffle scented Soy … LilacAve $5.00	1950′s Picnic Basket Sma… stockexchange $39.00
REAL SMALL PINK TEA ROSE BOB… lisaburkin $17.00	Hand Stitched Simple Leather… asaborake $120.00
Just Be a Little Ring ring i… esmeraldadesig… $65.00	French Vintage Baguette Bake… LeTrip $175.00
seven piece wood salad set ImSoVintage $26.00	Kitchen – Oven mitts set – F… TiffinyDesigns $24.50

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• I’m not rich enough
• I don’t have enough time to get really good
• I don’t have enough natural / scary / innate talent to miss out the practice

But from time to time I feel I need to give in and get something a bit pointless that I won’t use very much but that will let me get creative in the baking department. Especially if it’s not too expensive. This lead to me splashing out a whopping £6 on Miniamo star-shaped mini molds, that can be used for baking or setting a liquid in the fridge. It was a spur of the moment decision made in a baking shop; you can undoubtedly find them cheaper online.

My first thought was to make mini star shaped cakes in a contrasting colour-  perhaps vanilla-based cupcakes with red velvet star shaped cakes on top. Then I thought about how to embed a star shape in the top of a cake, and the experimentation began…

I switched from Rachel Allen’s red velvet recipe to Hummingbird Bakery‘s, mainly because the latter had already been adapted (cooking time and temperature) for cupcakes. I’m glad I did; lovely as Rachel’s is, the Hummingbird cupcakes were undeniably fluffier and, as the recipe calls for more colour, a richer and more tempting red.

The experiment was, taste-wise, a success. However it wasn’t perfect, and I’ll explain what I’d do differently next time as I go through…

Once I’d made the mixture, I pushed in the molds delicately in the centre. I had thought that delicacy was wise, since I didn’t want the mold to a) sink to the bottom or b) get so deeply stuck in it ripped the cake apart when I removed it. However, I was a fraction too hesitant, as you’ll see from the next picture… Next time, I would push the mold in a little further and possibly weight it with a couple of baking beans or similar.

The more hesitantly applied molds – and possibly less evenly poured in batter – resulted in some cakes with rather random angles at the top, and also one or two whose indentation was too shallow. Contrary to this dreadful photo, however, some did come out rather well, as you’ll see below!

This was one of the best ones. Please note that you have to wait until the cakes are at least 90% cool before removing the molds. If you don’t, it will just get really shredded around the edges. I suspected this, so I tested on which became the ‘sample’ cake (don’t pretend you’ve never done that). And it was genuinely in the spirit of experimentation rather than impatience, for once! The good news is, between baking and cooling you’ve got masses of time to melt some white chocolate and half-fill some molds with it. I bought 24 so I could bake 12 and prepare 12 toppings at the same time, but you could wait, wash the molds and start from there.

Oh, and a tip about cooling chocolate; it will get far less gloopy if you cool it at room temperature before finishing off in the fridge.

Then, when set, pop them out and, handling as little as possible, press them into the indentation left in the cake!

Again, I would have liked the chocolate to be a little deeper into the cake – possibly even flush with the top for a quite dramatic look – but given the cocoa base for red velvet cake the two went together very nicely and the stars added an element of creaminess without the sickly edge that a huge hunk of buttercream or cream cheese icing can give (and it says something when white chocolate is less sickly than pretty much anything else. I guess it’s the amount!).

Maybe I’ll find time during maternity leave to do more baking. Then again, a first time mother with a newborn? Maybe not.