Passover cakes are light desserts

Of all the items on the Passover menu, desserts stand out as being different from what we eat the rest of the year. This is part of their charm. Passover cakes are light and often served with fresh fruit, which is appropriate for the holiday known as the Festival of Spring. Instead of the common, everyday cookies, there are almond or coconut macaroons and crunchy meringues, which are delicious when home-baked.

To some people with little kitchen experience, Passover desserts have an image of being difficult to make. In fact, the mixing and baking techniques are the same as for other cakes and cookies. There are only a few adaptations of ingredients that create the special character of Passover desserts.

Cakes for Passover are light because they generally have a high proportion of eggs to make them rise. Because the Torah forbids using leavening during the holiday, most bakers do not prepare pound cakes and butter cakes. Some markets do carry kosher for Passover baking powder, but many traditional cooks prefer not to use it. They feel that even if these formulas are technically kosher, using any leavening is not in the spirit of the holiday.

Matzo meal, or matzos ground to a powder, is the most important Passover ingredient, outside of matzo itself, of course. Although matzo meal is best known as the basis for matzo balls, it also plays an important role in baking as a replacement for flour. On Passover, using raw flour is not allowed because it can leaven naturally when it is mixed with liquid. (Think of what happens when you make sourdough batter, which captures yeast from the air.)

Matzo cake meal is a more finely ground version of matzo meal. Both matzo meal and cake meal work well in light cakes, pancakes and some cookies. However, unlike raw flour, they have no gluten and therefore cannot support cakes that have significant amounts of liquid or fat; the cakes would simply collapse.

Sponge cakes are the most common Passover cakes, as the protein in the eggs helps to give the cakes structure. European style nut cakes, which are actually a rich variation of sponge cakes, are also popular and are great partners for sweet springtime strawberries. Generally, these cakes are made with matzo meal or with another flour substitute -- potato starch, which is also used to thicken Passover puddings and fillings.

Over the centuries, Jewish cooks working within these special rules have come up with an endless variety of creative Passover desserts.

Jayne Cohen, author of "Jewish Holiday Cooking," makes macaroons from toasted pistachios and flavors them with candied ginger, as well as an Italian-inspired carrot-pecan torta flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg. In her book of her family's recipes, "Cooking Jewish," Judy Bart Kancigor features a banana sponge cake moistened with mashed bananas and flavored with citrus juice and zest and chopped nuts.

In my family, chocolate desserts are the Passover favorites. Kosher for Passover chocolate behaves in the kitchen just like regular chocolate.

The difference is that kosher for Passover chocolate does not include lecithin, a soybean product found in many kinds of chocolate, because many Jews avoid all beans and other legumes during the holiday. Although chocolate itself comes from cacao beans, it isn't considered a legume.

Brownies for Passover are just as easy to prepare as usual brownies during the rest of the year, and when made with matzo meal instead of flour they have a pleasing, somewhat lighter texture. In nondairy desserts, necessary for kosher meals featuring meat, I find that chocolate's richness compensates for the absence of butter and cream.