Not every sweet tooth is a chocoholic — or at least that’s the way it appears from The Chronicle’s Passover recipe contest. Janna Rosenthal’s raspberry squares were the top vote-getter across four main categories: appetizers and soups, main course, desserts, and unique creations.
Chocolate was a dominant theme among the desserts submitted, and Steve Ellenberg’s Passover chocolate cream rolls came out on top in a fifth category: the reader’s choice award that voters could select from all submissions across all categories.
We received 17 recipes, with nearly 300 votes cast. The creations by Rosenthal and Ellenberg are featured below, but before that, we applaud the winners in other categories:
Appetizers and soups: mock chopped liver (Laurie Horn)
Main course: Pesach salmon filets (Joyce Zeldin)
Unique creations: matzoh popzoh (Wendy Sitzmann)
Raspberry Squares
Rosenthal said her dessert is not an “old” family recipe, but she has been making it for 18 years. When her husband worked for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, someone sent him home with the recipe. The Rosenthals decided to try it, and it has become a family favorite.
“It’s actually my step dad’s favorite recipe that we make. The first couple of years after we moved here 14 years ago, we made it and we didn’t have enough,” she said. “So we don’t just make one batch of it anymore; it’s now two or three, depending on how many people are coming.”
Pesach for Rosenthal is with her mom and step dad and siblings of their families. Every year she’s asked if she’s going to make the raspberry squares.
“It’s a definite split between our chocolate lovers and our non-chocolate lovers, but even our chocolate lovers still love this,” she said.
Rosenthal loves to bake, but not cook so much. And the raspberry squares are very easy to make. “The other great thing about them, especially in this day and age, is you can make them regular, you can make them gluten free, they’re pareve — they’re not vegan, but they’re just easy to put with everything.”
Plus even with the cake meal ingredient, they don’t taste “Pesadich.” You can make them year-round, although Rosenthal doesn’t. “It’s one of those things I save for Passover,” she said.
Passover Chocolate Cream Roll
Ellenberg is well-known for his catering business. He created his recipe while working at the Plaza III restaurant many years ago and it was added to their menu.
“I designed the recipe because it was flourless and only used about three or four ingredients and was so easy to make,” he said. “It’s really a no-brainer and tastes so good and it’s something you can eat year-round, not just for Passover. I wanted something to be for Passover, but not taste like Passover.”
He said if the dessert made the restaurant’s menu, it must have been pretty good. “We were an award-winning restaurant.”
Ellenberg attended the Culinary Institute of America in New York City, graduating in 1980. After leaving the Plaza III around 1985, he began his catering venture.
While he enjoys cooking and baking, and cooks for a living, his wife does the cooking at home. “I’m hardly home because I always have something going on,” he said.
Ellenberg speculated that his catering reputation helped him win the reader’s choice award.
“I’ve been around for a while and a lot of my stuff is well respected so they know if it’s coming from me, one, it’s freshly made, I don’t work out of freezers or anything like that; and two, they know it’s on a professional level,” he said.
