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Title: Chocolate Toffee Matzo
Categories: Dessert Jewish Candy
Yield: 1 Batch
| 1/2 | lb | Matzo (or less) |
| 1 | c | Butter |
| 1 | c | Brown sugar |
| 12 | oz | Chocolate chips |
| 1 | c | Chopped pecans (opt'l.) |
| 1 | c | Toffee chips (opt'l.) |
Line a 15 x 10 x 1" baking pan with aluminum foil. Line the foil with a layer of matzo crackers. If the matzo corners are broken, you can patch a little, but don't worry about covering every nanometer of foil with cracker.
Melt butter and stir in brown sugar. Boil until it coats a spoon, about 4 minutes. It will look very grainy at first and then become foamy.
Pour over matzo and bake 4 minutes at 450 F. Sprinkle evenly with chocolate chips and bake another minute, turning the pan in the opposite direction. Spread melted chocolate chips in a thin layer to cover. Sprinkle with nuts and toffee chips, if desired. Cool slightly, then refrigerate to cool completely. Break into pieces and store in tin. If the weather is warm, you may want to store the pieces in the refrigerator.
Yield: About 2 pounds.
Fritschner writes: "Ellen Prizant considers herself a pretty committed cook-from-scratch kind of cook. She likes to cook.
"But Passover, which begins at sundown tonight, daunts even her. The eight-day observance celebrates the Hebrews' deliverance from slavery in Egypt.
"It's a food-oriented observance. Passover begins with Seder dinner, which uses certain foods to help diners through the ritual of prayer and questioning. Through the eight days, Jews are admonished to avoid many foods - including bread and other wheat products. Unleavened bread is what the Jews ate escaping Egypt, because they left in such a hurry the bread didn't have time to rise."
"So unleavened bread is what they eat 3,000 years later. Matzo is the bread ~ really a cracker - that virtually every Jewish schoolchild uses to sandwich peanut butter and jelly during Passover. Matzo is also crumbled into eggs for frying. And Ellen Prizant uses it to make pizza, covering the top with spicy Italian tomato sauce, sprinkling it with cheese and broiling it until the cheese melts.
"'It's a real quick, easy snack,' she says, and child-friendly.
"With no wheat, Passover sweets can be a challenge. 'It's easy to think of things for adults,' says Prizant, 'like flourless chocolate cakes. But the kids aren't thrilled with that.'"
"One recipe that pleases both children and adults is a super-easy toffee made with matzo. Prizant found the recipe in a cookbook published by the Temple Emanu-El Sisterhood in Dallas that she bought in the gift shop of The Temple on Brownsboro Road in Louisville. 'I have trillions of cookbooks,' she says.
"The toffee starts with a layer of matzo. Avoid the onion and garlic flavors: the plainer ones are more suitable for this recipe. Choose any of the wheat, egg, lightly salted, unsalted or 'tea' matzos.
"They are really good," says Prizant, 'particularly good with the toffee chips.'"
From Food Editor Sarah Fritschner's 04/03/96 "Passover Offers Culinary Challenges" article in "The (Louisville, KY) Courier-Journal." Pg. C1. Electronic format by Cathy Harned.
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