L.A. Burdick

Delicious macaroons from L.A. Burdick are sure to make your Passover meal even tastier.

Passover starts March 25 and runs through April 2, and as Jews around the world prepare to give up leavened bread for eight days and nights, they have more options than ever to fill their Seder tables. Here are some of the most delicious ways to bring haute Hebrew goodies home.  

Gefilteria
These days gefilte fish is the sexiest Jew, next to Bar Rafaeli. This New York-based company makes their fish quenelles with salmon, pike and whitefish caught from the Great Lakes, then gently poaches the loaves in an onion broth. The result is airy, mild and elegant, closer to fine French food than the stuff in jars at the supermarket. It is shipped nationwide and arrives at your door frozen and ready to be consumed on Pesach.

Matzel Toff
Standard matzah isn’t the most exciting stuff. But, cover it in buttery toffee, rich dark chocolate and a touch of sea salt, and you have a treat that isn’t only Passover-approved, it’s year-round delicious. Beloved by celebrities like Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray, this sweet and crunchy treat is sure get your kids to try some matzah without bribing them with gelt (money).

Sarah Durlacher

Ish
Horseradish is always served at a Seder, both on the Seder plate and as an accompaniment to gefilte fish. But now it’s actually tasty instead of overly acidic and sulfuric. Ish makes artisanal prepared horseradish with fresh fruits and vegetables, and it is so tasty that you will never believe it’s related to the neon pink stuff you are used to choking down. From traditional earthy and hot beet horseradish to Asian-inspired ginger horseradish, this really elevates a traditional Seder meal.

William Greenberg Desserts

William Greenberg Apple Macaroon Cake
Though Passover is often a holiday filled with chalky jelly rings and insipid matzo meal cookies, it doesn’t have to be. Legendary New York City bakery William Greenberg (yes, you may have seen Betty from “Mad Men” carrying some of the bakery’s goods to a dinner party) treats Passover as an excuse to roll out the big guns, especially with its apple macaroon cake. This soft almond sponge cake is crusted in buttery pecans and topped with fresh apple slices. The cake ships nationally, but be warned, it might not make it to the end of the meal before guests finish it off.

Vermatzah
Remember the cardboard-like stuff that you are used to? Well, forget it. Vermatzah is here to save the day. This small batch, handmade matzah from Vermont is truly the Cadillac of matzohs. It is made from Vermont-grown wheat, is hand formed and wood fired, and the company prides itself on creating a hearty texture and taste.

Distillery 209 Vodka and Gin
It isn’t only bread that observant Jews must avoid during Passover. Oh no, it’s all forms of wheat other than matzah, as well as legumes, rice and other grains. Because of this, most liquor is not kosher for Passover. Luckily for those of us who need a little liquid courage to get through a night with our families, Distillery 209 has created kosher vodka and gin. The vodka tastes clean, the gin is lightly herbaceous without being too floral, and both go well with your favorite mixer.

L.A. Burdick’s Coconut Macaroons
What is Passover without a macaroon? This year, go for the high-end stuff from renowned chocolatier L.A. Burdick. While some macaroons can taste dry and dusty, these luxurious cookies are anything but. The macaroons are sweet, pleasantly sticky and loaded with fragrant coconut flavor. Dipped in the company’s trademark rich dark chocolate, they will make you wish that the holiday came more than just once a year.  

For more from Sarah Spigelman, visit her blog, Fritos and Foie Gras.

Patrick M. Gookin II

Bake vegan peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for your Valentine.

Our favorite thing about Valentine's Day? Spoiling our significant others with delicious desserts, from boxes of chocolate to tasty homemade treats baked with love. And even if your sweetie is vegan, they don't have to miss out on the tasty fun!

With more alternatives for milk and eggs readily available, it's easy to bake up vegan treats. 

“It’s healthier cooking with whole plant foods instead of animal products and it doesn’t contribute to animal suffering," Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary, told TODAY.com. "You don’t have to worry about the issue of how it [the product] was raised.” 

So try these vegan recipes to please your Valentine's sweet tooth, without sacrificing the decadence of dessert. 

Celine Steen

You won't be sacrificing taste by going vegan with these peanut butter cups.

Peanut butter cups

For the chocolate

• 1 1/2 cups chopped vegan semisweet chocolate
• 2 tablespoons natural creamy no-stir peanut butter
• Pinch of salt

For the filling

• 12 tablespoons natural creamy no-stir peanut butter
• 1/3 cup evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar, packed light brown sugar, or sifted powdered sugar (for less crunchy results)
• 2 tablespoons vegan graham cracker crumbs (optional)
• Pinch of salt

Prepare a standard muffin tin with 12 paper liners.

To make the chocolate: Combine the chocolate, peanut butter, and salt in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in 1-minute increments until melted and smooth, keeping a close eye to avoid burning and stirring often. Alternatively, use a double boiler.

Place 2 teaspoons of the melted chocolate in each cup-cake liner and with the back of a spoon carefully spread across the bottom and one-fourth of the way up the liner. Repeat with all 12 liners. Place the chocolate-covered liners on a plate and chill in the refrigerator until firm, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling: In a medium-size bowl, stir together the peanut butter, sugar, graham cracker crumbs, and salt.

Divide the peanut butter filling among the 12 liners, about 1 heaping tablespoon per liner, pressing down gently to make sure the filling spreads out. Chill in the refrigerator until firm, about 20 minutes.

Top the filling with 2 teaspoons of the remaining melted chocolate, spreading carefully so that none of the peanut butter can be seen. Let the cups chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before enjoying.

Store in the refrigerator or freezer. 

Yields 12 candies.

Recipe courtesy of Farm Sanctuary. From "Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites," Celine Steen, Joni Marie Newman, Fair Winds Press 2011.

Peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

• ½ cup non-dairy butter
• 3/4 cup organic evaporated cane sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 heaping tablespoons smooth peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 teaspoons egg replacer, dry (Ener-g egg brand preferred)
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¾ cup un-bleached organic all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup organic rolled oats
• ¼ cup vegan dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl or bowl of a standing mixer, cream butter and sugar until well mixed and soft. Add vanilla extract, peanut butter, maple syrup, sea salt, egg replacer and cinnamon. Mix until all ingredients are uniform.

Add flour and oats. Mix until all ingredients look evenly distributed. Fold in chocolate chips. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat (or use cooking spray). Scoop the dough with a tablespoon for even-sized cookies. Place about 1 inch apart.

Bake for about 15 to 18 minutes, rotating cookie sheets halfway through, to ensure even baking. Bake until edges are golden-brown.

Yields about 16 cookies.

Recipe courtesy of Farm Sanctuary and Spork Foods, a Los Angeles-based gourmet vegan food company owned and operated by sisters Jenny Engel and Heather Goldberg.

More:

• Like the molten chocolate cake at Arby's? So does dessert's famed creator
  
• Skip dessert and try chocolate wine for Valentine's Day
• Chefs share romantic Valentine's Day recipes

Francesco Tonelli

Warm Valrhona chocolate cake with cocoa bean brittle and vanilla bean ice cream prepared by chef Jean Georges and Chris Beischer of Mercer Kitchen in New York City.

In a world where food trends are fleeting, it's comforting to know that some things stand the test of time. Jean-Georges Vongerichten's molten chocolate cake is one of those dishes, acting as a sweet and steady beacon of warm cocoa amidst decades of chef shifts, dazzling  fusion, and mind-bending modernist technique. The dessert has become so popular since the Alsace-born chef introduced it in 1988, in fact, that it's now on Arby's fast food menu.

But it's not just chains that have glommed on. Everyone from the likes of fast casual concepts such as Chili's to the esteemed kitchens of Daniel Boulud have riffed on the idea. It's a natural pick-up because the dessert is inherently decadent, surprising and romantic.

And it's easy to play with. Its malleability and simplicity are what make it so attractive to chefs.

Chocolate pairs really well with so many flavors, like coconut, raspberry, passion fruit and caramel, so sorbet or ice cream flavors of that nature go perfectly alongside the ooey gooey cake.

Vongerichten likes to toy around with those flavors, as well as adding a little something special to the center on occasion.

 “Keep the cake neutral and then play with the embellishments,” he told TODAY.com. “You can put nuts or dried raisins or even a fried banana in the center. I baked one with raspberry, and it was delicious.”

When asked how he feels about Arby's adapting his recipe for the masses, Vongerichten seems flattered instead of being peeved. “When you deal with dessert and pastry, it’s a very exact science. They did a great job. I've tried it,” he said with a chuckle. “The original is better, of course. ”

It's a fascinating progression for a dessert that resulted from a kitchen mistake.

“It started with a warm moist sugar cupcakes we were preparing for a big party of 500 people,” Vongerichten told TODAY.com. “The temperature dropped with that many in the oven. I almost ripped my hair out. I got a standing ovation for it.”

Twenty-five years later, you'll still find the warm chocolate cake on menus. Which isn't at all surprising if you've had a taste. As soon as your fork pierces into the warm center, a lava flow of luxurious chocolate oozes out. It's a visual pleasure that's similar to bursting the yolk of a perfectly fried egg.

“It's very sexy,” Vongerichten said. We agree.

Want to make these gorgeous cakes for your Valentine? Here's how it's done by Vongerichten:

Chocolate molten cake
Makes 4 individual cakes

• 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, preferably Valrhona
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 

Preheat the oven to 450°. Butter and lightly flour four 6-ounce ramekins. Tap out the excess flour. Set the ramekins on a baking sheet.

In a double boiler, over simmering water, melt the butter with the chocolate. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with the egg yolks, sugar and salt at high speed until thickened and pale.

 Whisk the chocolate until smooth. Quickly fold it into the egg mixture along with the flour. Spoon the batter into the prepared ramekins and bake for 12 minutes, or until the sides of the cakes are firm but the centers are soft. Let the cakes cool in the ramekins for 1 minute, then cover each with an inverted dessert plate. Carefully turn each one over, let stand for 10 seconds and then unmold. Serve immediately.

More from TODAY Food:

• Skip dessert and try chocolate wine for Valentine's Day
• Chefs share romantic Valentine's Day recipes
• Erica Hill: My dad's love lives on through his boeuf bourguignon

featurepics.com

Chocolate and wine: Some say it's a pairing you should skip, but we'll admit, we love a chocolate wine when it's done right.

Pairing chocolate with wine is nothing new, but some wine makers have been pairing them in the bottle. The result, a rich, dessert-like beverage that, when done right, tastes similar to a smooth port – a perfect treat for Valentine’s Day.

Of course, wine geeks aren’t eager to push this vino.

“I think it's just as bad as wine coolers,” said Jonathan Cristaldi, a wine educator and consultant at The Noble Rot. “It creates more unfortunate associations for wine. Sweet and chocolate? Who needs this? Drink chocolate milk or Bailey's.”

Maybe wine snobs don't approve, but hey, some of them taste pretty good. For example, coming out of California is ChocolatRouge, a wine made with chocolate flavors sourced from cacao beans. There, the owners sampled chocolate from across the globe to pick the ones they thought paired best with their wine, and in the end, their Dark Red blend tastes like a slightly sweet velvety dessert wine rather than an overly cloying drink.

Trentadue’s Chocolate Amore is a delicious port that uses Merlot grapes to create the base, and then, includes a natural chocolate extract to finish the blend. Another port-based option to try is Joseph Filippi Winery’s chocolate-infused Fondante Ciello, which is produced in the Cucamonga Valley in California. Want something more exotic? Try Vinedo De Los Vientos Alcyone Tannat, an Uruguayan wine made from the tannat grape. It’s a perfect fill-in for dessert – it’s rich, smooth and like drinking the center of a molten chocolate cake.

There’s also chocolate wine that looks and tastes like chocolate milk. New Jersey-based Opici Wines produces their Cocoa di Vine, which when served chilled, tastes like a Nestle drink with a little buzz. Unlike its dark counterpart, this vino is made with the Pedro Ximenez grape, or Spanish sherry.

Owner Don Opici writes on the website that, “We tried several different chocolate formulas using a red wine base and didn’t find an appealing flavor profile. It wasn’t until we combined the chocolate with a white-wine base that the delicious aromas and flavors jumped out of the glass.”

Of course, you can always skip the bottled combinations of chocolate and wine and instead enjoy them separately. Cristaldi says that the combination generally doesn’t go well together because “the sweetness and bitterness and acid of chocolate tends to heighten the same characteristics in the wine.”

He isn’t alone in this assertion. At Lakewood Vineyards in New York’s Finger Lakes wine region, winemaker Chris Stamp said he has struggled to find the right pairings for the annual Seneca Wine Trail’s chocolate and wine event happening at around 30 wineries this coming weekend.

“It took me a lot of long and hard searching to find these, but I have been surprised a few times that some things can go together,” he said. “You want to use higher cocoa and less sweet chocolates, and try to pair with a fruit that has some acid.”

Juliette Pope, beverage director at Gramercy Tavern, shared her tips for pairing the two.

"If you have chocolate with berries or other fruit, go for a vintage port," she said .

She suggests trying Dow’s Vintage Port 2007, or, for a less expensive option, their ruby port. For a more exotic and expensive option, Recioto della Valpolicella is a good bet.

"If [you’re eating] chocolate with nuts and/or caramel and/or anything else in that vein, go Malvasia from Blandy’s or Leacock’s, or a sweeter style of Oloroso sherry," Pope added.

More from TODAY:

• Mason jar chic: Sweet (and tasty) DIY Valentine's Day ideas
• Lusty lagers! Sip on aphrodisiac beers for Valentine's Day
• For food lovers, think exotic Valentine's Day chocolates