It’s time for the great Passover challenge: baking. Dessert recipes cannot use flour, yeast, soy milk or even pure vanilla, and shifting from flour to matzah cake meal and potato starch is not intuitive, even for experienced bakers. Yet dessert plays an important part of the seder meal.
Here’s a suggestion from pastry chef and author Paula Shoyer.
Strawberry Mousse
Serves 8
16 oz. fresh strawberries
1 tsp. imitation rum extract, optional
2 tsp. confectioners’ sugar
juice of 1 lemon
6 Tbs. sugar
2 Tbs. unflavored kosher gelatin powder
1 cup parve whipping cream
Remove the stems from the strawberries and set 6 of the strawberries aside. Take the 6 strawberries, slice thinly, and place in a small bowl with the rum and confectioners’ sugar. Mix to combine and then place in the refrigerator.
Cut the remaining strawberries in half and place in a blender or food processor fitted with a metal blade. Purée the strawberries completely, scraping down the sides of the processor bowl or blender so that all the strawberries pieces are puréed.
Place the strawberry purée in a small saucepan. Add the lemon juice and sugar and stir. Cook on medium low heat for
5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sugar melts. Add the gelatin, whisk, and then remove from the heat. Strain into a medium bowl, pressing hard to get as much strawberry purée through as possible, and place in the refrigerator for
20 minutes, stirring twice during that time.
In bowl with an electric mixer on high speed, whip the whipping cream until stiff. Remove the strawberry purée from the refrigerator and fold in the whipped cream in four parts. Scoop the mousse evenly into ramekins and smooth the tops with the back of a spoon. Cover with plastic and place in the refrigerator for 3 hours or overnight.
To serve, remove from the refrigerator and place a few of the rum-soaked strawberry slices on the top. Store covered in the refrigerator for up to three days. n
From “The Kosher Baker: Over 160 Dairy-Free Recipes from Tradition to Trendy” by Paula Shoyer (Brandeis University Press)