Kosher Baking A-Z

The coconut whipped cream in the parve version of this Strawberry Shortcake tastes so incredibly good, you won’t believe that it’s pareve. Use this recipe to replace any whipped cream for your guests who are vegan, soy free, or those who just don’t want to eat the chemicals known as non-dairy whipped topping. If using frozen strawberries, make sure to only buy the Bodek PREMIUM frozen strawberries, which come in re-sealable black and peach bags in the frozen aisle of your kosher supermarket. These strawberries are pretty enough for garnishes, even though they are frozen. Other frozen strawberries won’t be as nice. Make sure to follow the directions for defrosting them, so that they retain their naturally pretty shapes.  All you have to do is arrange whole frozen strawberries in one single layer, over a double layer of paper towels. While still frozen, so as to retain the shape of the strawberries, slice half of the strawberries into thin slivers. Allow strawberries to defrost.

Enjoy the recipes for whichever one works for you:

Parve Strawbeery Shortcake

Dairy Strawberry Shortcakes

As seen in Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller Magazine (Summer 2012) – Subscribe Now.

Amid the many low rise office buildings on the busy street in West Los Angeles sat the small wooden house, the last remaining structure of its kind on this street, and the final evidence of a simpler time gone by.  The house had a few small tables situated outside its doors, and inside its living and dining rooms had been cleared to accommodate small and medium size tables, seating a total of about 30 people.  The house maintained the charm of its original wood floors and peeling pastel paint, but the door to its kitchen had been updated with a swinging one that had a window in its center, a nod I’m sure to the modernized kitchen within.

This was the setting of my long-ago favorite restaurant, Chez Helene, closed for a couple of decades now but still very alive in my memory.  I was introduced to this gem, specializing in French country cuisine, when I was in college and I frequented as often as my budget allowed.  I always ordered my same favorite dishes, which were presented efficiently and warmly by young servers in crisp white aprons, often boasting French accents themselves.

It was here that I was introduced to a simple and wonderfully delicious dessert called the “Chomeur,” which I had never heard of before and have never seen on another menu since.  Available in raspberry or caramel (I always chose caramel), it consisted of a moist, warm caramel cake baked atop a buttery caramel sauce, and was served in its own individual oversized ramekin with a small pitcher of light cream alongside it.  The first time I ordered the chomeur, I was instructed to break open the cake to release its steam and pour enough cream over it to lightly soak it.  The resulting perfect spoonful after addictive spoonful was warm and pudding-like, with the sweetness of the caramel slightly cut by the cream.  It retained enough texture to remind you that you were eating cake and was as moist as you desired by how much cream you added.  It was truly simple comfort-food perfection and one of the best non-chocolate desserts I have ever had.

Here is my version of Caramel Chomeur – enjoy the recipe.  What is the best dessert you ever ate?

Asking a chef what the best thing they ever ate is complicated. It is like asking a kid to pick only 1 piece of candy! Or a make-up artist which color lipstick they like best, or a designer which fabric they favor most etc…

You get the idea. There have been so many bests. That is why I chose this job. I am surrounded by my favorite things all day long. It is like hanging out with all your friends-how can I pick just one?

(So, yeah, thanks JOY OF KOSHER for making me choose.)

When you are a chef, it is dangerous because when you get a craving for a dish, you can just jump in the kitchen and make it, perfectly, every time!

If I see a picture in a magazine or on TV, I can go make it. In my world, it gets even more exciting because my husband is also a chef and we can both go in the kitchen and pull together a world-class meal and then devour it! We are both, each other’s, personal chefs.

I have had many amazing meals and flavors. It is hard to choose.  So, today, I am going to go with a dish that I have asked my husband to make before Passover and he was crabby and wouldn’t do as he was busy and we were in Passover mode. Finally he relented and I am getting the dish this weekend. Whoo-hoo!

Sometimes, the simple things are best and this is my best, for today!

I love MILLE CREPE or CREPE CAKE.

Layers and layers of tender, vanilla scented crepes with luscious vanilla pastry cream alternating with raspberry preserves. It is like a comfort dish that my dad used to make when I was a kid. He would take pancakes and schmear them with jelly and roll them into little tubes and serve them to me for breakfast or whenever I was craving them. It was our special dish and I loved them.

The grownup version is relatively easy to make though time consuming. The cake is beautiful and a crowd pleaser. Enjoy!

Here is my recipe for Mille Crepe.

When I think about celebrating Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, my thoughts naturally turn to Israeli food. Yom Haatzmaut is a day of celebration and barbecues across Israel, and just thinking about all the delicious spiced grilled meats and veggies stuffed into fresh pita with hummus and other salatim makes me hungry. I want the flavors of Israel to be front and center in any Yom Haatzmaut menu I create and I try to have an Israeli meal from beginning to end.

One of quintessential flavors of Israel that I like to include is the refreshing combination of lemon and spearmint, called limonana (a combination of the Hebrew words for lemon and mint).  The combination of lemon and mint is the perfect way to cool off on a hot Israeli day and limonana abounds in Israeli supermarkets both in the form of drinks and other frozen treats.

Frozen Slushy Limonana Drink

My favorite way to enjoy limonana is the frozen slushy drink served in many Israeli cafes. When I am in Israel it is my go to treat to cool off on a hot summer day. When I return home from a visit to Israel I always crave frozen limonanas. This recipe makes it easy to enjoy this refreshing treat at home. All it takes is a blender and a few simple ingredients and you can be sipping a frosty limonana in your own kitchen or backyard. Yom Haatzmaut is a day of barbecues and nothing will cool you off quite as much while standing by the grill as this Israeli treat.

Limonana Bars

While traditionally the flavors of limonana are usually used in beverages or frozen treats I wanted to use the same flavors to make something a bit more unique to serve for dessert on Yom Haatzmaut. These bars take the combination of lemon and spearmint and turn them into the perfect minty lemon bars. With a crisp shortbread crust topped with a sweet and tangy lemon mint filling, these bars are refreshing and deliciously satisfying. The flavor of the bars is quite intense so I highly recommend cutting them into small squares.

Whether enjoying these limonana treats on Yom Haatzmaut or any other day they are sure to be a hit with all who try them.

Slushy Limonana Drink

Limonana Bars

Have a Sweet Week this Passover with amazing desserts brought to us from the folks at the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts, the kosher cooking school in Brooklyn, NY.  CKCA’s pastry chefs got in the kitchen to create these non-gebrokts Passover desserts special for Joy of Kosher readers. During the final tasting, CKCA director Jesse Blonder exclaimed, ‘These are the best Pesach desserts I’ve ever had—hands down.”

Passover Chocolate Nut Spice Cake

This is an exceptionally moist, really different kind of Passover cake. It takes a little work, but it’s worth it. You will need a 9-inch springform pan, a baking sheet, a box grater, and a food processor. I use a hand-held beater for the egg whites, but of course you can use a stand mixer. The cake can be made one or more days in advance.

Italian Meringue Coffee Dacquoise

These delightful Italian meringue layers are baked on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Trace two 8-inch circles on the paper with a pencil, and then turn the paper over. You may either pipe the meringue into the circles through a pastry tube, or simply use an offset spatula to spread it into the circles. The meringues can be made a day or two in advance and stored in plastic bags.

Passover Choclate Lava Cake Dessert

Passover Coconut Macaroons

Orange Lemon Sponge Cake

Contributed by The Center for Kosher Culinary Arts featuring Lynn Kutner

As seen in the Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller Magazine Passover 2012 – Subscribe Now

A steaming mug of sweet, creamy, chocolatey deliciousness.  What could possibly be better in the dead of winter?  Come in from the cold, put on some warm socks and curl up in front of the fire with the mug warming your hands.  Hot chocolate oozes coziness and tradition, starting in childhood sometime after the second or third snowball fight.  But was it hot chocolate or hot cocoa that you sipped?  Do you remember?  Does it matter?  You might be surprised to learn that there is much debate on this exact subject.

Even though “hot chocolate” and “hot cocoa” are often used interchangeably, there is a big difference between the two.  Hot chocolate or “drinking chocolate,” is made from ground chocolate (which contains cocoa butter) mixed with hot milk.  It is made by taking solid chocolate and chopping it finely or grinding it into a powder, then melting it into hot milk which adds to its creaminess.  It is smooth, supple and satisfying.  Drinking chocolate is commonly enjoyed throughout the world, but particularly in Europe where, for example, the very thick cioccolata densa is a staple of northern Italy.

Hot cocoa, however, is made with cocoa powder only, along with nonfat dried milk, sugar and flavorings.  It is usually made from a powdered mix and is sweeter than hot chocolate.  Even when making hot cocoa from scratch, adding cocoa powder and sugar to hot milk, it ultimately lacks the rich smooth texture of hot chocolate due to the absence of cocoa butter.  Is it obvious which I prefer?

The Aztecs are first credited with cultivating the cacao bean to brew “cacahuati” or “xocolatl” (literally “bitter water”), an unsweetened version of modern-day hot chocolate.  In the 17^th century, Spanish doctor Antionio Colmenero de Ledesma published the first recipe for hot chocolate as an elixir, adding different spices to treat a number of ailments.  Even President George Washington was known to wash down his breakfast of cornmeal cakes with a cup of hot chocolate to sustain his health.

Today, hot chocolate is usually consumed for pleasure rather than medicinally, but new research continually suggests that there are many health benefits attributed to the drink. The most significant heart-healthy components of chocolate, the basis of the drink, is a group of compounds called flavonoids which are known to have multiple beneficial health effects.  Dark chocolate is much richer in flavonoids than other types of chocolate, and its consumption has been linked to improved arterial flow, lowered blood pressure, reduction of heart disease, heart attacks and strokes, and even cancer prevention.  Other studies have shown that hot chocolate contains more antioxidants than wine and tea, and that a larger amount of antioxidants are released when the beverage is heated, thus making hot chocolate even better for you.

So hot chocolate is good for our health, not just for our soul.  Here’s one of my favorite ways to enjoy it:  I add complexity by infusing with whole spices and citrus to create delicious undertones of flavor, as well as a grown-up twist by adding coffee (which also cuts the sweetness of the chocolate) to really treat my whole self.  A perfect, rich, delicious way to keep warm this winter – when you want to indulge a little.

Spiced Orange Mocha

Tu B’ Shevat, the Jewish holiday celebrating the New Year of the Trees, is something I fondly anticipate each year in the midst of winter. As a child growing up in Northern California we always held our Tu B’shevat seder outside on the grass and then planted new trees in the back yard. The first bulbs of spring would be beginning to bloom and it was the perfect time of year to plant new trees. While it is a bit harder to feel that kind of tangible connection when in much of the country it is still the heart of winter, it is still wonderful to celebrate planting and trees and a time when the earth will be blooming again.

Almond Stuffed Dates

On Tu B’Shevat, it is traditional not only to plant trees but also to eat food from the seven species mentioned in Deuteronomy (wheat, barley, olives, pomegranate, figs, dates and grapes). Although they are not mentioned in the same verse, almonds also have a special significance for the holiday because they are one of the first trees to bloom in the spring in Israel and they have the symbolism of fertility and rebirth While I like eating all the different fruits and nuts commonly served at a Tu B’Shevat seder, I have to admit I like to dress them up and bit and turn them into more of a sweet treat.

One of my favorite things to serve on Tu B’shevat is almond filled dates. These almond stuffed dates are a common Middle Eastern sweet. A bit of sweetened almond paste is stuffed into a date and then topped with a whole almond. The soft sweetness of the date complements the almond flavor perfectly and the crunch of the whole almond brings it all together. These are extremely quick and easy to put together, but seem much more elegant than a simple dried fruit plate.

Another fun way to incorporate almonds into a Tu B’shevat menu is these almond linzer cookies. Many people have a tradition of making etrog preserves after Sukkot and saving them to eat on Tu B’shevat. Following that tradition I filled these almond linzer cookies with etrog preserves. It is said that eating etrog brings the blessing of fertility so if that isn’t what you are looking for, or you simply don’t have any etrog preserves in the house, feel free to use any other good quality jam or preserves.

Almond Linzer Cookies

My favorite Tu B’shevat treat, however, are these pomegranate and fig filled almond macarons. These are not the heavy coconut macarons of Passover. They are delicate almond confections filled with either pomegranate ganache or honey fig jam. They are a bit more involved than the other recipes but in my mind the results are worth it. They may seem intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of making the macarons they are not so hard to make. I use the Italian Meringue method which seems to be a bit more reliable than the French Meringue method. Precision does matter when making macarons so I highly recommend measuring by weight. I have to admit the process of making them is a bit addictive. You may find yourself making them again and again.

No matter if Tu B’Shevat brings great weather or snow, these treats are sure to bring the sweetness of spring to any Tu B’shevat table.

Almond Stuffed Dates

Almond Linzer Cookies

Italian Style Macarons with a choice of fillings

I almost always stick with round cake pops, for some reason shaped pops intimidate me. A crazy cake? No problem… a shaped pop? Yikes! But when I was asked to do a guest blog post I thought what could I do that I haven’t done yet and haven’t seen yet? Purim is right around the corner and I feel like my thoughts go immediately to masks. I thought I’d go out of my comfort zone and try mask cake pops! Well I think I was pretty successful with it and I hope you will be too. Enjoy my tutorial and have a Happy Purim!

Materials:

• 1 9×13 prepared cake- any flavor (for a fun colorful pop- put food coloring in yellow cake batter)
• ¼-½ cup prepared frosting-any flavor (get creative with flavor combinations!)
• 2-3 different colored Pareve decorating bars (I prefer Lieber’s)-use more colors if desired.
• Lollipop sticks or plastic crazy straws
• Royal Icing in different colors (I prefer the Wilton’s recipe: http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Royal-Icing)
  • If you’re not familiar with piping royal icing, for a quick cheat use edible markers-found in cake supply stores (such as Michaels)
• Piping bags fitted with tip #2 (Here’s a quick tutorial on fitting and filling a piping bag: http://www.wilton.com/decorating/decorating-basics/using-decorating-bags.cfm )
• Parchment Paper
• Time and Patience, and plenty of it

1) Make the Cake Pop mixture:

1. Remove any burnt or crunchy pieces from your cake.
2. Using your fingers (wear gloves if you have), break up your cake into small pieces (I do this right in the pan I baked it in, but feel free to use a large bowl).
3. Add ½ frosting and mix together with your hands until it resembles  a dough, adding more frosting as needed
4. Cover and pop in the fridge for about 15 minutes to firm it up.
5. Place the mixture on a piece of parchment paper and flatten it out to about ½ an inch.
6. Cut out mask shapes

• If you have a small mask or mustache cookie cutter, now’s the time to use it!
• Or you can cut out a small mask template, place it on top of your mixture, and cut around it. Try not to go bigger than about 2 inches wide.

1. Once your masks are all made, stick it in the freezer for a few minutes to firm back up. (Don’t keep it in too long, or it’ll be hard to get the stick in and it could break-if it’s too frozen just give it a minute to warm up a bit)

2) Melt your decorating bar.

• Different methods work for different people (microwave, double boiler). I prefer to break up the bar in a pyrex measuring cup and stick it in my warming draw on the highest setting. It stays warm until I need it and doesn’t burn.

3) Time for dipping!

• Dip the end of your stick into the melted candy then stick it into your mask. Stick back in the fridge a few minutes to set. This is to merge the straw to the mask to reduce the risk of it falling off the stick when you dip the whole thing. If you notice some cracking in the middle after you insert the stick, using the back of a spoon, spread some melted candy down the center on both sides

• Now you’re ready to dip the whole thing. Make sure you have enough melted candy in your measuring cup (or bowl) so you can submerge the whole mask. Dip quickly-covering the whole mask, lift, and gently turn it and shake off the excess back into the bowl until it’s dry. You may want to dip twice to make sure it’s fully coated. Stick it in styrofoam to finish drying or lay it down on silver foil if it is completely dry. Repeat until you’ve covered all masks.

4) Time to decorate!

• Using black royal icing with a #2 tip (or your black marker), pipe eyes onto your mask.
• Using other colors with a #2 tip, pipe swirls, squiggles, and other “masky” designs.
• Take it up a notch with edible glitter, colored sugar, and pearl sprinkles.
• For a fun display, fill a tall clear vase with jelly beans and stick the pops right in

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Many cooks and top chefs will agree that baking can be a huge hassle. Even many acclaimed chefs are intimidated when it comes to baking pastries and dessert. Becoming a pastry chef is a specialty area among chefs. It can be a time consuming and messy process that entails a lot of attention to detail and the use of many dishes. In addition, any parent that has baked with their kids can attest to the end result. Happy faces, sticky fingers and cake batter in unimaginable places. That is why many of us buy cakes and cookies from a local bake shop. However, there is nothing like home baked goods. Try the following recipes. These recipes are really easy to make and because you can use a fork, a whisk and a bowl, they are great to make with kids.

Chocolate Cookie Cheesecake

This recipe allows you to sidestep using a mixer by using already whipped cream cheese. It is very simple to make and is delicious and fun as well. Using the sandwich cookies provides the taste of a good crust without having to do all the work.

Banana Cake

This recipe yields a delicious and moist banana cake that will make those banana cake haters into big fans! Bake in Bundt pan to impress your guests. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar.

Cinnamon Sugar Cookies

If you like sugar cookies you’ll love these cookies. They are soft on the inside, yet have a crunchy sweet bite.

Apple Muffins

This recipe is delicious. It is muffin perfection. Most importantly, it is a very healthy recipe. All types of flour work in this recipe, including whole wheat flour, which can be difficult to incorporate into baking. It is a great snack for kids and adults alike.

Pecan Pie

Adding maple syrup to the pecan pie provides a twist to the traditional pecan pie. Adding salt provides a contrast to the sweetness of the pie and enhances the sweetness as well.  And one last amazingly fun treat is Bananas Flambeed.  Flambé refers to lighting a dish on fire. Use this dessert at the end of a dairy meal. This dessert can be made on the spot and can be a great cause of entertainment for your guest if you choose to flambé the caramel rum sauce.

Growing up Jewish I never celebrated Christmas, but I did used to wonder about it. In the United States, no matter your persuasion, everyone is surrounded by the music, colors and characters of the holiday season for two solid months. However, it wasn’t Santa I wanted to know about, or the reindeer or the trees. I wondered about how families felt together when they brought out their once-a-year decorations or ate a special breakfast reserved for only for December 25. I imagined it felt as sentimental as seeing our seder plate only once a year on Passover or delighting in our special family tradition of churros, fried Mexican doughnuts, only on Chanukah.

I have always been fascinated by customs and family traditions and how they got started. Recently, my friend Erica from Pittsburgh shared her family’s Christmas tradition, which for me was a first to hear about: no presents. Erica explained that about ten years ago, her close-knit family realized that they were too stressed out about finding “perfect” gifts for everyone and in so doing, they were losing the meaning behind the holiday. So they decided to trade the hustle and bustle for the uncomplicated pleasure of enjoying each others’ company all season long in relaxed ways that everyone enjoys: cooking together, going out to eat and watching movies. Apparently once they made this switch they
never looked back, and for good reason – they have the ability to cherish what is really important to them in pleasurable and unhurried ways.

At my request, Erica’s mom was gracious enough to share a treasured family recipe with me, handwritten on a sheet of paper (in truth, it was a scanned and emailed copy of the handwritten recipe, but the true personal nature was definitely retained). I am honored to share it as my favorite kind of recipe, the kind that is a tradition to make every year at a certain time. The kind everyone anticipates with excitement because that time of year is rolling around again, and the kind that is created with an abundance of love. Erica’s mom never fails to make it for her family every year and I’m sure when she does, her heart is bursting with love.

Heirloom Pineapple Squares

Raise your hand if you ever really stick to your shopping list! Yeah, I didn’t think so. Neither do I. So while on a shopping trip at Bed Bath & Beyond, I happened upon a mini doughnut pan by Wilton and bought two! I mean, each pan only makes twelve mini doughnuts, and I knew I would want more that. Are you laughing now? I put the pans aside for the right moment and it came when my three-year-old randomly asked for chocolate doughnuts.

I made these Baked Doughnuts.  Then I lightly topped 24 of the doughnuts with colorful sprinkles for my 3-year-old, Zach, and another 12 with shimmery yellow sugar from Breezy’s in Long Island. I think I enjoyed them more than he did.  Thirty Six baked doughnuts later, Zach actually asked for red doughnuts. What a demanding child! Since I still had ¼ of the batter left, I added some red food coloring and Zach had red mini doughnuts!

There you have it! These mini cake doughnuts are delicious and so much fun to just pop in my mouth, one by one. I can’t
wait to try out different flavors, such as lemon or cinnamon. What a show-stopper these will be! You can also bake other
recipes in the mini doughnut pans, such as corn bread or spinach kugel. Just adjust your baking time, since they only need to cook for 10-15 minutes.

Happy Chaunukah!

As published in Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller magazine (Bitayavon Winter 2011) – Subscribe Now

Coffee Cream Cups pictured above.  I love desserts in cups.  No matter how you do it, they always look great.  Try these dairy coffee creams.  They are really unique.

You don’t need special tools to make amazing petite fours.  All you need is a good knife, space in the freezer, and…patience.

The combination of passion fruit and caramel is mouthwatering.  If you don’t have a silicone mold, you can use a 12-inch spring form pan.

Swiss Layered Cake Turn a traditional layered cake on its side for a twist.

Box ‘em, Bag’em, Eat’em!  Whatever you do with them, they are the perfect Chanukah treat.

Ycan find pastry boxes for your donuts at craft stores or online.  Fill mini boxes with donuts for your guests to take home.

Insert the cookies into glassine bags affixed with our special Chanukah labels! Download and print.

Chanukah Cookies with a Flavor Twist – Maccabee Gingerbread Men

This recipe is a much milder version of traditional gingerbread men. If your family prefers more zing, increase the ground
ginger and cloves. The orange zest offers an unexpected twist that’s very kid-friendly. If you don’t have whole wheat pastry
flour, replace it with white flour. Encourage the kids to decide on a color scheme when decorating the cookies; or, keep it
simple and bake them with colored, coarse sugar crystals sprinkled on top.

Don’t Want to Deep Fry Donuts? Bake Away! – Baked Donuts

Try these delicious baked donuts for an almost guilt free Chanukah alternative. Each donut contains only 1 teaspoon of oil. For pareve donuts, use coconut or soy yogurt and milk. When measuring the flour, use a spoon.  Do not pack the flour down into the measuring cup.

The Cutest Little Donut Bites – Zeppole (pronounced zep-O-lee)

They are small fried Italian donut balls, made from cream puff dough. Try these little puffs of donut heaven, for a new spin on your traditional Chanukah donuts.

Beyond Gelt, but Still Covered in Chocolate – Sourdough Brittle

I’m tired of jellybeans inside of plastic driedels and one-dimensional chocolate.  This Chanukah, there will be gelt, of
course—but that’s where the sweet surprises will only start.

During the entire week which followed Hurricane Irene last year, when my electricity was out, I moved in with mom. One night, I was in the mood for candy, so I started to melt some sugar in a pot for praline. Mom was not too happy that I was messing up the kitchen late at night and that was the end of my praline (I can’t blame her, candy gets hard and is pretty impossible to clean). The next day, my candy craving metamorphosized and I had the idea to put salty pretzels in a toffee for a salty and sweet treat. It wasn’t until Saturday night when mom finally let me indulge in experimentation. A week later, when I was settled back into my home, my mother called up, “Get this brittle out of my house!”

It’s important to get the brittle as thin as possible, and the best way to achieve that is by preventing the brittle from cooling down before it is spread on the trays. To achieve that, the pretzels and the trays themselves must be kept warm as instructed.

As seen in Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller Chanukah 2011 Issue – Subscribe Now.

Labels, tags, and driedel candy holder custom designed for Joy of Kosher Magazine by ESDesignGroup.com.

November is my birthday month (I was a Thanksgiving baby), so I love to treat myself to special fall desserts especially during November.    As a working mom, running both my business and my household, I generally don’t have time to devote to complicated treats.  This is where quick breads step in…

Really cakes at heart, quick breads are aptly named for their quick preparation and ease of baking.  The batter comes together quickly and generally bakes in a loaf pan;  sometimes the finished cakes are glazed, sometimes not.  They are homey and comforting, great with coffee for breakfast , with tea as an afternoon snack or anytime with a glass of cold milk.  And as with cake, quick breads can be made in any flavor imaginable.

For me, any dessert worth its weight and calories must contain chocolate, either as the star or as the runner-up.  At this time of year, however, the pumpkin reigns (I have to admit that it is one of the only flavors that on its own can pull me away from chocolate – and that is saying a lot!).  But even better are pumpkin and chocolate together – earthy, spicy and rich, complementing each other beautifully.  In this quick bread, pumpkin and chocolate pair so deliciously with the ease of everyone’s favorite chocolate spread, Nutella, and the added nuttiness and crunch from toasted hazelnuts.

Even if your birthday’s not in November, you should still treat yourself to this delicious fall dessert!

Nutella Swirled Pumpkin Bread