Matza Apple Tea Cakes

On Tuesday and Wednesday this past week, our 5th and 6th graders made Matza Apple Tea Cakes during our monthly Hebrew Cooking program to help build Hebrew vocabulary. It's a Passover recipe, since the holiday is just a little over a week away (Friday evening, April 3rd is erev Pesach).

It's a very simple recipe which provided us with a good review of vocabulary we've already used as well as new vocabulary.

We reviewed verbs we've used in the past - la'afot (bake), l'arbev (stir), l'hoseef (add), la'seem (put), and introduced two new verbs - l'haktzeef (whisk) and l'fazer (sprinkle)

Reisheet kol, leesh'bor arba'a beitzeem l'toch ha'k'ara ha'g'dola (First of all, break 4 eggs into the big bowl)

Az, l'hoseef shemen l'toch ha'k'ara ha'g'dola (Then, add oil into the big bowl)

Achshav, l'haktzeef et ha'beitzeem v'shemen b'yachad (Now, whisk the eggs and oil together)

La'seem kemach matza v'melach me'al ha'beitzeem v'shemen (Put matza meal and salt onto the eggs and oil)

V'az l'hoseef ameelan tapoochei adama v'sookar l'toch ha'k'ara (And then add potato starch and sugar into the bowl)

Achshav, l'arbev et ha'kol b'yachad eem kaf... (Now, stir everything together with a spoon...)(The gluten-free matza meal mixture turned out to be much thinner than the regular matza meal, so in spite of Jacob looking like it was hard to stir, it was actually quite easy!)

...oh yada'eem (...or hands). Hands were the perfect stirring tool for the thick mixture, as Ari is demonstrating here - dough on his hands and a big smile on his face!

Of course getting the dough off the hands presented a new problem - one solved with the spatula and the help of a friend.

Achshav zeh z'man l'hoseef et ha'tapoo'ach (Now it's time to add the apple) (I cored, peeled and diced a Granny Smith apple for each group at home to save time.)

L'arbev et ha'kol b'yachad pa'am achrona (Stir everything together one last time)

V'az l'maleh et ha'neeyarot ba'tavneet eem ha'eerboov (And then fill the papers in the muffin tin with the mixture)

U'va'sof, l'fazer eerboov shel sookar v'keenamon me'al kol oogeeya... (And finally, sprinkle a mixture of sugar and cinnamon on top of each little cake...)

Achshav zeh moochan la'seem ba'tanoor l'esreem dakot (Now it's ready to put in the oven for 20 minutes)

The ingredients have been mixed and put in the muffin pans, the vocabulary has been reviewed and introduced, the tables have been cleaned, and the students have all gone to tefillah in the Beit Knesset (for grades 3-5) or the Sanctuary (for grades 6 and 7). And yet, we're not quite finished with the process...a behind-the-scenes look at what our wonderful TA's can look forward to cleaning after each cooking session!  TODA RABA L'ISABELLA V'MAX!!! (THANK YOU VERY MUCH TO ISABELLA (on Tuesdays) AND MAX (on Wednesdays)!!!