Charoset Bars

Serves 12

Charoset is a rel­ish made of fruit, nuts, and red wine that rep­re­sents the mor­tar used by Jew­ish slaves in the build­ing of pyra­mids in Egypt. It is one of the sym­bol­ic foods on the Passover seder plate, and its ingre­di­ents vary by cus­tom. Sephardic charoset incor­po­rates dried fruit (like dates, raisins, apri­cots, or figs), nuts (often almonds or wal­nuts), and cin­na­mon. Ashke­nazi charoset includes fresh fruit (my dad always used pears, but apples are also com­mon), wal­nuts, and red wine. This recipe fus­es both ver­sions into deli­cious bars that are so good, it’s hard to imag­ine that they are kosher for Passover!

3 cups superfine blanched almond flour

¾ cup sugar

½ cup wal­nut or grape­seed oil

1 extra-large egg

1½ tea­spoons kosher salt, divided

1 ripe pear or Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and rough­ly chopped

14 plump med­jool dates, pit­ted (about 10 ounces)

¼ cup dry red wine

¹⁄8 tea­spoon ground cinnamon

½ cup chopped wal­nuts (about 2 ounces)

1. Pre­heat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8 × 8‑inch pan with parch­ment paper.
2. In a medi­um bowl, stir togeth­er the almond flour, sug­ar, oil, egg, and 1 tea­spoon of the salt until com­bined into a smooth dough. Remove 1 cup of the dough and set aside.
3. Using your hands, press the remain­ing dough into the bot­tom of the pre­pared pan in an even lay­er. Bake for 12 min­utes, until light­ly puffed. Cool for 5 minutes.
4. In the bowl of a food proces­sor, pulse togeth­er the pear, dates, wine, cin­na­mon, and remain­ing ½ tea­spoon salt until pasty, scrap­ing down the sides of the bowl with a rub­ber spat­u­la as need­ed (it should resem­ble mor­tar, just like the sto­ry of the Exodus!).
5. Add the wal­nuts to the reserved 1 cup of dough and mix with your fin­gers to com­bine. Spread the charoset fill­ing over the cooled baked dough and crum­ble the wal­nut mix­ture over top. Bake for 18 min­utes, until browned around the edges. Cut the bars into squares and store in an air­tight con­tain­er (use parch­ment paper if lay­er­ing). Store at room tem­per­a­ture for up to 2 days or refrig­er­ate for up to a week.
6. To freeze, wrap squares indi­vid­u­al­ly in plas­tic wrap, trans­fer to a zip-top bag, and freeze for up to 2 months.

Freeeez­er-Friend­ly

“Total­ly Kosher” Copy­right © 2023 by Chanie Apfel­baum. Pho­tographs copy­right © 2023 by Chanie Apfel­baum. Pub­lished by Clark­son Pot­ter, an imprint of Ran­dom House.”