Vegetable and Fruit Kugel Cupcakes

This past week we began our third round of Hebrew electives for our 5th and 6th graders. For the first cooking class in this round, we prepared vegetable and fruit kugel cupcakes, a recipe from Joan Nathan. It calls for only 20 minutes of preparation time and 25 minutes cooking time, which was perfect for our time framework. When I first found the recipe, I thought it was a Passover side dish because of the matzoh meal. But looking closer, I realized that with baking soda as one of the ingredients, it could not be used for Passover.

If you don't mind the grating process, it's a very simple recipe to prepare. The students didn't seem to mind the grating at all.

New students to our cooking elective quickly learned what "leerchotz et ha'ya'da'eem eem sabon" meant - returning students quickly filled them in on the meaning even before they had a chance to look at the board. Personally, I learned a new vocabulary word myself - a sweet potato in Hebrew is "batata" (which I also discovered is the Arabic word for potato). Yardena, my co-teacher, shared that because until very recently there were no cupcakes in Israel, they use the English word.

L'gared gezer (grate a carrot) 

There were actually two carrots to grate

So much to grate - so little time!

L'hachzeek ba'ke'ara ha'g'dola (Hold the big bowl) v'l'gared et ha'ta'poo'ach (and grate the apple)

Nice grating style, Ben!

L'gared et ha'batata (grate the sweet potato)

L'gared et ha'gezer v'et ha'batata (grate the carrot and the sweet potato)

How far down do I dare grate the carrot? Leeshmor al ha'etzba'ot! (Watch the fingers!)

L'hoseef et kemach ha'matza, soda afeeya, v'chem'a namess (Add in the matzah meal, baking soda, and melted butter)

Achshav, l'arbev et ha'kol b'yachad (Now, stir it all together) - note, there are no black beans called for in this recipe. The can is for tz'daka

U'va'sof, la'seem et ha'eerboov ba'tavneet eem ha'kaf (And finally, put the mixture in the baking dish with the spoon)

Yesh harbei eerboov! (There's a lot of mixture!)

Achshav zeh moochan la'seem ba'tanoor (Now it's ready to put in the oven) - thanks for the help, Katie!

L'nakot et ha'shoolchan leefnei hafsaka! (Clean the table before recess!)

This time around, there were mixed reviews from the students. Some enjoyed the resulting cupcakes, and some thought we should have added sugar. Of course, after all the sweet desserts we've been preparing in past sessions, it didn't surprise me that some students thought the cupcakes were desserts rather than side dishes (after all, cupcakes are by definition small cakes!). I should also mention that since we have to also prepare gluten-free adaptations to all our recipes, I found a box of Yehuda gluten-free matzah at Safeway. I ground up 4 matzah crackers in the food processor (for 1/2 cup matzah meal), and it worked very well.