Make a Cookie Sukkah for a Sweet Sukkot

My cookie sukkah!  Notice the hanging fruit.

There are some very specific rules for building a sukkah (hut) when celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which starts this Wednesday night. The sides and roof have to be built a certain way and the sky must be seen through the roof when you sit inside. The Cookie Sukkah below doesn't adhere to any of these rules and you definitely can’t eat in it, as is the Sukkot tradition, but you can actually sit down and eat the sukkah.

This family project can be a good discussion starter about Sukkot, also known as the Festival of Tabernacles or Booths.  It commemorates the shelters ancestors built for protection during the Exodus and during harvests in Israel. It uses filled, rolled wafer cookies to build a log-cabin style sukkah. There are many brands and flavors of these cookies (several certified kosher). Cookie lengths vary, so adjust directions if needed to keep dimensions proportional. (I used Pepperidge Farm Pirouettes.) Buy extras since breakage (and snacking) is inevitable. When assembling, use enough frosting for the cookies to adhere but not so much as they slide off one another. Decorate with fruit-shaped candies. Use the sukkah for a centerpiece or eat it for dessert. Either way it will help make a sweet holiday.

If you don't want to use or can't get the rolled cookies, pretzel rods or hard bread sticks will also work, although you might have to fuss with the dimensions a bit.

It can be made up to 48 hours in advance and kept very loosely wrapped at room temperature. Try making a etrog and lulav (the traditional Sukkot symbols) out of marzipan tinted with food coloring. (Or use a Lemonhead candy for the etrog and springs of green herbs for the lulav.)

Cookie Sukkah

Inside sukkah

Makes 1 Sukkah

About 8 oz. 6” long, filled, rolled wafer cookies (you'll need at about 24 or so of the 6" cookies)
3/4-1 cup purchased white frosting
Assorted fruit-shaped candies, cereal and or fruit snacks

Have ready a flat tray, parchment or waxed paper, ruler, serrated bread knife, aluminum foil, needle, and thread.

Cover tray with parchment or wax paper. Set aside 18 of the 6” long cookies. Gently saw rest with serrated knife into 8-1” long pieces and 8-2”long pieces.

You will be building this "log cabin" style, using the frosting for glue.  If at any time the structure seems precarious, stop and let frosting set a bit or add in support while it dries.  (See Level 3.)

Building sukkah before roof

Level 1
Smear bottom of 1-6” long cookie with frosting. Press gently to adhere to tray 2 and 1/2" from the middle. This will be the back of the sukkah, side “A.” Frost bottom of 2-2” pieces. Press them down 5” from the first, with the outside ends of the short pieces lining up with the outside ends of the 6” cookie and parallel to side “A.” This will create the opening for the door.  This is side “B,” or the front of the sukkah.

Cover the bottom of 2-6” cookies with frosting. Lay them perpendicular to sides “A” and “B” log cabin style, allowing the ends to protrude 1/2" over “A” and “B.” Press gently to secure. This makes sides “C” and “D.”

Frost the bottom of 2-1” pieces. Press them down perpendicularly across the 2” pieces but parallel to sides “C” and “D” and indented 1/2" from the inside ends of the 2” pieces.

Level 2
Frost the bottom of 1-6” cookie and lay atop side “A.” Frost 2-2” pieces and lay perpendicular to the 1” pieces on side “B.” (So the 2” pieces are parallel to the “A” side.)  Press gently to secure. Cover the bottom of 2-6” cookies with frosting. Place on top sides “C” and “D.” Next, frost the bottom of 2-1” pieces. Lay perpendicular to “A” and B” across the 2” pieces as in level 1.

Level 3
Repeat Level 2 directions. If necessary, crumple up balls of foil to help support inside corners. (This is when I started needing the supports.)

Level 4

Detail of front construction

Repeat level 2 directions.

Level 5
Frost the bottom of 2-6” cookies. Place one atop side “A” and one atop side “B” (to create a door way header). Cover unused frosting.

Let structure sit for 1 hour. Remove foil supports. Frost back of candies and gently press on to inside and outside walls. If using soft candies such as gummies or fruit snacks, thread needle and poke through candy. Tie off ends to make 1” loops. Hang on the 4 remaining 6” cookies. Frost cookie bottoms. Place each about 1” apart across sukkah top parallel to sides “C” and “D” to make roof, with candy dangling down. Store at room temperature, loosely covered with parchment or waxed paper.

Make a Candy Menorah for a Sweet Chanukah

This year the Jewish festival of lights starts the evening of December 8.  This delicious hanukkiah (Chanukah nine-candle menorah) celebrates eight nights of sweetness, that is if you can keep your child (or inner child) from consuming it immediately.

Making candy and even marshmallow menorahs is not new, but these “candykiahs” have lots of options for customization. Switch the candy candle “flames” to mini marshmallows (colored ones look impressive) or other small treats.   Skip the lollipop and use an additional pretzel stick-gum drop “candle” for the shamesh, or the taller “helper” candle. Use a bit of the icing to attach gold-foil covered chocolate gelt perpendicular to the front of or flat as a base for each marshmallow.  Use additional decorating gel for designs or lettering on the marshmallows.  Spread additional frosting on the marshmallows and scatter with sprinkles, colored sugar or edible sugar glitter.

If younger children are making the menorahs, have them skip the pretzel stick candles and attach the gum drops directly to the top of the marshmallows with a bit of the icing. 

If you plan to move your creation, be sure to use the sturdy, oval heavy paper plate (I used Chinet 12 5/8” x 10” plates).  Other options include foil-wrapped cardboard or a regular dinner plates.  Be sure any base can accommodate nine of the full-sized marshmallows in a row.

A note about ingredients – you can find all the ingredients certified kosher (heckshered).  Local kosher markets and some Whole Foods stores carry the marshmallows or  they can be purchased on online.  I found kosher gum drops and lollipops at Trader Joe’s, but other brands are available locally and online.  The pretzel sticks, icing and decorating gel were purchased at Target and are widely available.

Chanukah Candy Menorah

You might need extra candy if you have nibblers and extra pretzel sticks to accommodate any breakage. 

For each menorah you will need
10 full-sized marshmallows
2-3 Tbs. of blue or white prepared icing or frosting
8 small gum drops
8 pretzel sticks, optional
1 lollipop
Blue decorating gel (from a tube), optional
Large, oval, heavy paper plate

Place nine marshmallows in a straight or curved line to fit on plate or other base.  Make sure the center marshmallow is snuggly touching the marshmallows on each side (needed for added support). Attach each marshmallow to base with a bit of icing.  Top center “helper candle” with just a bit more icing and attach a second marshmallow (don’t use too much or the top marshmallow will slide around). Push and turn the paper stick of the lollipop into the doubled marshmallow until it is secure.

If using pretzel sticks, gently push and turn into the base of the gum drop.  (If necessary, adults can use skewers to make guide holes for the pretzels).  Holding the marshmallow, gently push and turn the pretzel stick with the attached gum drop into the marshmallow.  Repeat for the 7 other marshmallows.

If not using pretzels, top the 8 remaining marshmallows with a dot of icing and attach gum drops.
If using decorating gel, pipe a Jewish star or other design on the front of center marshmallow.
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A version of this Chanukah (or Hanukkah)  post appeared in the December 2012 Temple Beth Abraham Omer.

Care and Feeding of Picky Eaters

Erika, of the wonderful In Erika's Kitchen, tweeted today looking for suggestions on how to deal with children who are picky eaters.  I started listing out what worked with my picky eater and before I knew it I had gone from writing a tweet to writing an email to writing a lengthy blog post. 

Consider this a post-in-the-making.  I'm going to add and refine it and maybe add a recipe and photo as I think more about what worked with my two boys growing up. (I had one foodie and one picky eater).

If you have tips or other info to share, please leave a comment.
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Picky eaters can be born or made.
Those who are born that way are probably supertasters (like author and food guru Michael Pollan's kid). That is a whole another issue where what the children taste and smell is so intense that it overwhelms them.

My own picky eater (who at almost 23 is still relatively picky) was made. Unlike some (my mother for instance who was a notoriously picky eater in her childhood since her mother was always pushing food), he didn't become a picky eater from pressure from his parents to eat, but rather from an attempt to shape his own world and control his own life.

Before he was four he ate anything. Recipe after recipe with ingredients like chickpeas, eggplant, spices and other adult favorites is marked with "even the baby liked it." At four that all stopped. Confused we took him to the doctor. The doctor smiled and said: "I have good news and bad news. The good news is your son is very smart. The bad news is that he is manipulating you."

Our son needed a lot of limit setting (which he tested continually) to thrive back then. The doctor felt our oldest was finding a way to express some boundaries and limits of his own by what he would choose to eat. (Our youngest is whatever the opposite of a picky eater, he's open to new foods, and prefers fruits and vegetables to just about anything else.)

Relived our son was healthy we went from the pediatrician's office armed with only this advice: "Don't make him a separate meal."

I began not saucing the pasta so he could eat his plain, scraping the sauce off a piece of chicken before he was served it and looking for ways to make sure he'd eat healthy meals.

Here are some strategies that worked for us:

1. Asking questions. Why do you like this or not like that? It took us a while to figure out it was the texture of cooked vegetables he couldn't handle, but that he would eat and even ask for raw ones. (My non-picky eater stopped eating broccoli and artichokes for awhile. Finally we figured out he only liked the stems of the broccoli and the leaves of the artichokes. We were happy to accommodate his tastes and share with him.) Kids' taste buds are sensitive as well so overwhelmingly bitter foods can be a problem. If there was a low-fat salad dressing, ketchup, yogurt or salsa to dip them in, so much the better. (Watch portion sizes on the salad dressings). Look for similar foods and put them out to try. Mine went from eating raw carrots to nibbling on jicama, for example.

2. Instituting a three servings a day of fruit and vegetables (excluding juice) rule. Sliced bananas with cinnamon, dried fruits, veggies with dips, celery with peanut butter or low-fat cream cheese and raisins, apple slices and other "fun" foods helped get the boys to their three a day. Luckily, they also liked green salads. If they accomplished three servings a day they could have a small cookie or small serving of non-fat pudding or other relatively healthy treat after dinner. (That helped keep their treat consumption down as well). Because juice was extra the boys almost always got their 5 servings a day. To be honest, in the beginning the picky eater's choices were very narrow (carrot sticks and fruits) but eventually he widened his list of acceptable foods.

3. Setting a good example. We always have a full fruit bowl that can be used for snacking at any time and the kids always saw us reaching for fruit as a snack.

4. Posting a list of suggestions on the fridge door of healthy snacks or foods. The kids used to love watching me change the "menu" and get excited by the new choices.

5. Offering no thank you portions. Our rule was you had to try new foods at least three times before you could officially say you didn't like it.

6. Making meal time interesting and compelling, not a time of judgement or criticism about the child's eating style or anything else. Conversation, asking questions, sharing, etc. all help. Dinner time was mandatory for my two even as teens. If you didn't feel like eating, you still had to sit with us until we were done.