Went down to hang out with my mother

[conuly]

and Jenn was there too, and we watched... the holiday baking challenge? I don't know, one of those baking competition shows.

So the first episode we see just the tail end, and the woman who is definitely about to be kicked off is being criticized for her decorations being too sunny and not Christmassy enough (because she'd forgotten to put snow instead of grass on the ground and then sort of had to fake it with snowmen) and I really was rooting for her to say "You know, in my country it doesn't snow. This IS seasonal", but she didn't. She should have.

And then in the next episode the producers remembered that holidays other than Christmas exist, so for the first event (or, as they cutely call it, the "pre-heat") they wanted the contestants to make rugelach, but with innovative fillings. I don't exactly think of Hanukkah and go "Oh, yes, time to eat the festive rugelagh!", but what do I know? I never like that stuff anyway. When I go by the farmer's market or the grocery store and there's rugelach on sale, I buy something else. Never even crosses my mind that I might want some to snack on or after dinner.

Perhaps predictably, the one guy who both a. knows what rugelach is and b. bakes it regularly for his store flubbed his recipe and they came out all flat. Meanwhile, everybody else is freaking out over decorating the stuff, and all the time Jenn, my mom, and I are all staring at the screen going "...but it's rugelach. You can't decorate it. There's only so much you can do with it, and decoration isn't exactly on the table here. Because it's rugelach." Their attempts to decorate were interesting, and that's all I can say about it.

Then they all went and made tiramisu. I was on tenterhooks waiting to see if anybody would tell the guy with the oddly-shaped gingerbread men that he'd accidentally used a reindeer cookie cutter instead. (They finally did! And he still won!)

It's nice sometimes to watch some fluffy, not-too-thinky TV for a while with the family :)

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

My limited understanding of rugelach is that they are not fried, unlike sufganiyot or other traditional Hanukkah foods. So this is not quite as bad as putting up a store display for Hanukkah with matzoh, but it's on that spectrum. I guess Hanukkah is over anyway though, and has been?

[conuly]

Well, I don't know when this originally aired, so....

(And yeah, it's baked, but it's a baking show so maybe they don't have any fryers? IDK.)

[crystalpyramid]

Oh I guess that's fair about the timing. Couldn't they just fry things in a saucepan? I'm sure they sometimes need pans for custard fillings or glazes or something? And some baked goods use oil...

[jesuswasbatman]

Don't know about America, but British cooking culture now discourages deep frying in pans on hobs due to the fire risk.

[crystalpyramid]

I have no idea, I'm just a person who sometimes cooks things, not someone who keeps up with the latest recommendations on how I can't cook things without a special device.

[conuly]

Question: Does BrE distinguish between pans and pots?

[jesuswasbatman]

It might vary within the UK, but my general rule is that a pan has a long handle on one side, while a pot has no handles, or small ones on multiple sides.

[conuly]

...it doesn't have to do with the depth of the vessel?

[jesuswasbatman]

Not at all - "pans" can be anything from a frying pan to a saucepan that's six inches or more deep. There are limits to how big a pan can be, but they're down to purely how heavy a vessel filled with water can be and still be capable of being lifted one-handed using a side handle.

[conuly]

*mind blown*

[jesuswasbatman]

And I now understand the derivation of "deep pan pizza", which had always puzzled me - British cooks would be more likely to think of the vessel a pizza was baked in as a baking tin or tray, depending on how high the rim was.

[conuly]

In the case of pan pizza, I wonder if it has to do with Italian translation. Like, a lot of Italian-Americans call tomato sauce "gravy".

[adrian_turtle]

It seems more likely that they don't want a non-baking challenge on a baking show. Would they (have they?) had a contest to see which of the bakers could make the best salad? Sure, they COULD. The kitchen is equipped for it. Many bakers are also good general cooks But it's not the object of the game.

[adrian_turtle]

There are several different symbolic food traditions around Hanukkah. Frying foods to commemorate the miracle of the oil is just the most famous one. There's also the story of Judith. In the days of the Maccabees, she sweet-talked her way into the enemy camp and gave their general wine and cheesecake until he fell asleep. Then she cut off his head with his own sword. She had traveled to the enemy camp with a bag of kosher food (mostly cheese), so she put the general's head in it and went home to her village.

The story is apocryphal. Yet, for some reason, people still like to name their daughters "Judith." And to eat cheese-based foods on Chanukah. Cheesecake itself is popular, obviously. So are cheese-filled fried pastries. But the dough for rugelach has as much dairy (cream cheese, sour cream, and butter) as flour, it it counts.

[crystalpyramid]

That is awesome! And a good way to justify eating cheese, a worthwhile pursuit.

[conuly]

That's modern rugelach. Older rugelach is yeast raised and doesn't have a cream cheese dough.

[oracleofdoom]

My favorite is Kids Baking Championship.

[conuly]

They're all so teeny!

[chez_jae]

Sounds like it was quite tense, actually. Ha ha!

[conuly]

:D

[spikethemuffin]

I love some rugelach but others taste like resentment to me, and it is terribly frustrating to me that I can't tell the difference by sight. Plus, I feel guilty because maybe I'm just a horrible American trailer trash who can't appreciate good Jewish cooking (it took me a while to like anise and organ meats, for instance, just like any typical horrible American, even though I grew up in Europe) and it's cultural appropriation and I'm not worthy of Jewish food...

[conuly]

We can't all love all cuisines, though.