The Lace We Had to Have for Our Battenburg Wedding Huppah

When we saw this beautiful lace, we knew we it was the perfect finish for our Battenburg Lace Huppah. It’s substantial and sophisticated, with beading and just a light touch of iridescent sequins – so light that it’s hard to see in the photo. To preserve the quality of the lace, we sewed it to the canopy’s valances by hand.

Get more details here. Check rental availability for your wedding date here.

Photo Huppahs.com | Photography Jason Weil, Maryland | Location Woodend Nature Sanctuary, Audubon Naturalist Society, Maryland

And see more huppahs:

• Real Life Ivory Silk Huppah in the Park
• A Wedding Chuppah for All Venues: The Simplicity Huppah
• Real Life Wedding: Organza Huppah at Brooklyn’s Prospect Boat House

DIY wedding dress in Kate Middleton style from Butterick Patterns

DIY brides and Kate Middleton fans: Butterick Patterns has released a pattern for a Kate Middleton-inspired wedding dress. The design features the high lace collar, tight bodice, and pleated skirt we know and love from the Duchess of Cambridge’s royal wedding.

Sizes: Misses 6-20
Difficulty Rating: Advanced
Pattern Number: B5731

Pippa Middleton inspired bridesmaid dress pattern from Butterick.

And yes, Butterick also offers a Pippa Middleton-inspired bridesmaid dress pattern in sizes 6-22. Difficulty rating: Average.

Photo credit: http://butterick.mccall.com

Thank you, Butterick!

Grace Kelly-esque pattern from Vogue.

ALSO TAKE A LOOK AT:

• DIY wedding dress in Grace Kelly style from Vogue Patterns
• The Traditional French Wedding: An Endangered Species?
• Royal Wedding Hors d’Oeurve Reception Menu with Kosher-fied Recipes

Pre-Passover Is a Great Time to Choose a Kosher Wine for Your Jewish Wedding

When we asked a group of prominent wedding rabbis to give us their tips for organizing a Jewish wedding, one of their comments was that couples and wedding planners should make sure that the wine used for the huppah ceremony is kosher. If you don’t know a lot about kosher wines and aren’t sure what’s available in your area, then this is a great time to check out your options. In these last weeks before Passover, lots of kosher wine shops, synagogues, and Jewish organizations offer wine tastings and special sales.

Passover begins on March 25 this year, and we’re well into the Pre-Passover wine tasting season, so take a look today to see what’s going on in your area.

If you’ve missed the special wine tastings in your area, experiment during the Passover Seders. After all, if we’re drinking four glasses of wine during each Seder, you can make each round a different variety. Not many options available locally? This is also a good time to order great kosher wines online so that you can have them in hand in time for the holiday.

Can you recommend a wine? Share it in the Comment section!

TAKE A LOOK AT:

• HE’BREW: Great Kosher Beer for Your Jewish Wedding
• Free printable templates:Do a favor for your guests and a good cause: Give a charitable donation instead of wedding favors (Huppahs.com)
• 7 Ideas for Decorating a Huppah (Chuppah)

Colorful Ketubahs, Eco-Friendly Kippot, Re-Invented Cake?! Mazelmoments.com Lays Out the 2013 Jewish Wedding Trends

Want a quick overview of the smoking trends for Jewish weddings in 2013? Mazelmoments just released their 2013 Wedding Trends Report. The folks at Mazelmoments filled the report with colorful, informative snapshots of what we’ll be seeing a lot of at Jewish weddings this year, including decor, catering, ketubahs, and huppahs (Spoiler alert: just like Huppahs.com, Mazelmoments finds that couples are having a love affair with organza huppahs).

To get the report you’ll need to sign up for Mazelmoments’ newsletter, but if you’re planning a wedding or if you’re a wedding vendor, their mailing list is a good place to be. Sign up and get the report.

Are you loving a trend that you’re seeing? Shout it out in the Comments section.

You might like:

• Royal Wedding Hors d’Oeurve Reception Menu – Kosher-fied!
• 7 Ways to Decorate a Wedding Huppah
• Our 100 Favorite Backyard Wedding Themes

The Jewish Wedding Ceremony, Step by Step

The Jewish wedding ceremony is richly layered in centuries of tradition, Jewish law, spiritual teachings, and customs from communities around the world. Here we’ve laid out the basic structure of the traditional Jewish wedding, with some of the most widely-accepted interpretations of the parts of the ceremony. We’ve also included some of the most popular customs and practices that couples have added during the past few decades. If we’ve missed any of your favorite customs or interpretations, feel free to add them in the Comment section.

Greeting the Couple

Traditionally, Jewish wedding celebrations begin with separate receptions for the bride and groom, together called kabalat panim. Many contemporary couples combine the activities of these receptions into one small pre-huppah ceremony attended by only a few family members and friends.

Attending the Bride. At the bride’s reception, referred to in Hebrew as hakhnassat kallah, the bride sits on a specially decorated chair and receives well wishes from her guests.

The Groom’s Table. At the groom’s reception, or chossen’s tish, two traditional documents and one newly-adopted document are signed.

1. The Tenaim. The traditional formal agreement between the two families that the bride and groom will marry.
2. The Ketubah. This is the wedding contract. In the most traditional of Jewish weddings, the purpose of the ketubah is for the groom to assume his legal and moral obligations to his wife. The groom and two witnesses sign it. Increasingly, couples choose ketubahs that lay out both partners’ obligations to each other, and both partners sign them.
3. Prenuptial Agreement. The Prenup is a new agreement, introduced in the 1950s and embraced by a wide spectrum of Jewish communities. It helps ensure that a woman who marries under Jewish law and decides in the future to end the marriage will be able to obtain a divorce under Jewish law. The Conservative movement incorporates this agreement into its standard ketubah through what is called the Lieberman Clause. Modern Orthodox communities generally use a separate prenup form.

Veiling the Bride. Also called bedecken. The groom lowers the veil over the bride’s face. The groom is the person who lowers the veil so that he can make sure that the bride is the person he intends to marry. The practice recalls the Biblical story of Jacob, who was tricked by his father-in-law into marrying the sister of his intended bride.

The Huppah Ceremonies

In a traditional Jewish wedding, the groom puts on a kittel, a white robe, before the festivities move to the huppah. Wearing white, for both the groom and the bride, signifies that for them this day is a new spiritual beginning. The kittel has no pockets, symbolizing that the bride marries the groom for who he is rather than for what he owns. For the same reason, the bride removes her jewelry before the huppah ceremony.

The wedding takes place under a huppah, a canopy that represents the couple’s physical and spiritual home. The huppah is open on all four sides, like the tent of the first Jewish couple, Abraham and Sarah, to associate the couple’s home with the hospitality for which Abraham and Sarah were known. Historically, a bride was escorted from her home to the ceremony while walking under a huppah carried by four huppah-bearers.

The Procession. For a ceremony using a traditional hand-held huppah, the huppah bearers carry the huppah into the ceremony space. Then, as with other modern wedding processions, any special honored guests are escorted to their seats, and the members of the wedding party enter and take their places. The groom is escorted to the huppah by his parents, and the bride is escorted by her parents.

Kiddushin, The Betrothal. When the bride reaches the huppah, she circles the groom seven times, creating the spiritual space that will surround them in marriage. The number of circles can vary. Today, both partners may take turns circling each other to symbolize their mutual obligations to each other. After circling, a bride stands to her groom’s right.

• Opening Blessings.
• Blessing for the First Cup. The rabbi recites a blessing over a cup of wine, and the wedding couple each take a sip. Some couples may pass the cup to their parents or other guests for them to sip.
• The Ring Ceremony. This is the central act of the Jewish wedding ceremony. The groom places the ring on the bride’s right index finger while reciting the following, in Hebrew or his native language: “By this ring you are consecrated to me in accordance with the laws of Moses and Israel.” Today, some brides also give the groom a ring at this time, while reciting a similar statement to that of the groom.
• Bride’s Acceptance. Two people must witness that the bride accepts the ring willingly.

Reading the Ketubah

Reading the ketubah is not a formal part of the ceremony, but today most couples incorporate it into the ceremony at this point.

Nussuin, Nuptials

The sheva b’rachot, seven blessings, are recited. These prayers place the couple within God’s continuing act of creation and celebrate the many voices of joy that God created in the world, including the voices of the bride and groom.

Breaking the Glass

The groom smashes a glass on the ground with his foot as a reminder of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Everyone yells “Mazel tov!”

Yichud

The newly married couple spends some time in seclusion — at least eight minutes according to strict interpretations of tradition — breaking their wedding-day fast and sharing their first married moments alone together. The bride puts on the jewelry she took off before the huppah ceremony.

For modern couples who do not have a double ring ceremony under the huppah, this is a good time for the bride to present the groom with his wedding ring.

After the yichud, it’s time to join everyone else at the party!

Ivanka Trump: Her 2009 Jewish wedding started the popular trend toward more demure gowns.

ALSO VISIT:

• What do the Jewish bride and groom wear?
• 21 Things Rabbis Wish Wedding Coordinators and Couples Knew About Planning a Jewish Wedding (Huppahs.com)
• Kosher-fied Royal Wedding Hors d’Oeurve Reception Menu with Recipes

The Surprising Thing Missing from Many Jewish Wedding Planning Checklists

This is the season when engaged couples start looking in earnest for — and media start posting and publishing — wedding planning checklists. Each year I’m surprised at the number of Jewish wedding planning checklists that leave out a critical item: the huppah. I suppose it’s a bit self-serving of me to mention this, since my company rents huppahs, but I guess I’m hoping to get this item included in as many guides as possible or get it hand-written onto as many couples’ lists as possible to help ensure that the huppah is a source of joy for couples rather than a last-minute worry.

Last-minute huppah rentals are something of a specialty of Huppahs.com. In fact, we love being able to tell panicked clients who contact us just a few weeks before the wedding that they will have a huppah, delivered to their door, no problem. But every once in a while we have to say that we no longer have anything available, which is heartbreaking for couples and for us.

We also work with clients who reserve their huppahs more than a year before their weddings. The nice thing about working with brides and grooms as far in advance of the wedding date as possible, for them and for us, is that we can give them as wide a range of huppah styles to choose as we can.

The check box for reserving a huppah should ideally lie just under the check box for choosing the ceremony location. When you know where your ceremony will be — whether it’s a synagogue, beach, country inn, hotel, backyard, bistro, or zoo — you have a good idea of the style of your wedding and the style of huppah that you would most prefer.

So we recommend that couples contact us to check huppah rental availability soon after they choose the location for their ceremony. That’s when you’ll have the widest selection and the best chance of securing the huppah that works best for you.

And we do try to make your huppah rental the easiest box to check off your to-do list.

How can we make huppah rentals even easier for you? Leave us a note in the Comments section.

VISIT:

• Real Jewish Wedding: Natalie + Richard Wed Under an Ivory Silk Huppah in a New York City Park
• 7 Tips for Designing Stylish Long Tablescapes on a Budget
• 7 Ways to Decorate a Huppah (Chuppah)

Recipe: Chili Chocolate Cupcakes to Spice up Your Dessert Buffet

Chocolate cupcakes with chili chocolate frosting.

Guest blogger: Agnes Goldrich, Age 14.

As the resident baker in the Bywater family, I recommend these chili chocolate cupcakes for a wedding cupcake buffet (or a great dessert for your Mom’s birthday). Also, I’m told they go well with champagne.

(What was the best cupcake flavor you ever had? Share it in the comment section!)

For the chili chocolate cupcakes, start with Devil’s food chocolate cupcakes from a mix, then add this chili chocolate icing:

Chili Chocolate Frosting Ingredients

• 4 sticks butter, softened
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• ¼ cup milk
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¾ teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ¾ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 10 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled

Baking tip: When baking the cupcakes, fill the cupcake pan liners a little more than 2/3 full. You’ll only get 20 cupcakes instead of 24, but the cupcakes will be a nicer size.

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy.
2. Add powdered sugar, milk, cinnamon, chili powder, vanilla, and cayenne pepper. Beat until fluffy.
3. Add bittersweet chocolate and beat until blended.

ALSO VISIT:

• Recipe: Mini Orange Almond Cakes, Dessert Hors D’Oeuvre (Parve, Non-Dairy)
• Recipe: Hazelnut Wedding Cake with 50 Servings (Non-Dairy, Parve)
• Dessert Hors d’Oeuvre Recipe: Chocolate Truffles (Parve, Vegetarian)

Wedding Huppah Rentals “as Easy as Zappos.com”

Lace Wedding Huppah

We love all the positive reviews we get for Huppahs.com, and one of my favorites said we “make it as easy as Zappos.com to receive and return your chuppah.” Zappos is a company that we thought of as we designed our services. We try to make it as easy to rent and return a wedding huppah as it is to buy and return shoes for Zappos.

Here’s how we do it:

• We ship the huppah by FedEx to arrive by the Wednesday before the wedding so you can be confident you’ll have it when you need it.
• We provide simple instructions for attaching the huppah canopy to the poles. It takes about three minutes.
• When it’s time to return the huppah, use the box the huppah arrives in and the pre-paid FedEx return shipping label we send. You can drop it off at a FedEx location or call for FedEx to pick it up, which ever is easier for you.

For more info: Huppahs.com | Check huppah availability for your wedding date

Is there a way we could make huppah rentals even more convenient for you? Send us an email.

RELATED:
Real Jewish Wedding: Natalie + Richard Wed Under an Ivory Silk Huppah in a New York City Park
Real Life Jewish Wedding: Under an Organza Huppah at Brooklyn, New York’s Prospect Boat House
Free printable templates: Do a favor for your guests and a good cause: Give a charitable donation instead of wedding favors

HE’BREW: Great Kosher Beer for Your Jewish Wedding

One big plus of moving Huppahs.com to New York has been finding out about HE’BREW beer, a line of great-tasting kosher craft beers. If you want to offer your wedding guests something different at the bar and give the beer lovers in the crowd something they’ll appreciate, serve up some Origin Pomegranate Ale, Hop Manna, Messiah Brown Nut Ale, or one of the line’s other amusingly-named but seriously good brews.

I don’t have the beer vocabulary to even bluff at describing the tastes, but one reviewer who presumably does have that vocabulary was reduced to the word “WOW.” In the 2011/2012 World Beer Championships, where HE’BREW’s maker, Shmaltz Brewing, entered fourteen beers, nine of their beers won gold medals and five won silver. It’s good beer.

HE’BREW beers are brewed in upstate New York, but you can find them in more than thirty states (as well as extremely selected locations in Canada, Australia, and Japan). A newer line of Coney Island Craft Lagers is available through a more limited number of outlets. Shmaltz Brewing’s website provides helpful lists of wholesalers, shops and bars that carry its products.

Related: Special Wedding Details: Catoctin Cocktail with Kosher, Organic, Rye Whisky

Generally, an unflavored beer made with only water, barley, yeast, and hops, without any additives, will be kosher even without certification (for this information, I go to Orthodox-Jews.com). But when you want to get at all adventurous with taste and still keep kosher, you have to look for certification. HE’BREW beers are certified by the Orthodox-grade Kosher Supervision of America.

I raise my glass to the folks at Shmaltz Brewing Company for advancing the art of beer for the rest of us to enjoy and impress our guests.

RELATED: Real Life Wedding: Alanna + Joe’s Brooklyn Neighborhood Wedding

Persian Pomegranate Sangria (Kosher Drink Recipe)

Recipe: Baked Pears for an Autumn or Early Winter Wedding (Parve or Dairy, Vegetarian)

These pears work for both elegant and rustic menus. Add homemade berry sauce and serve them as an accompaniment to a slice of light wedding cake or as a side dish for a wedding brunch.

Today my daughters and I packed a brunch and brought it to my parents’ house to celebrate their wedding anniversary. The planned menu included poached pears, but last night, when I should have started the poaching, I hung out with a bunch of brothers and sisters and in-laws instead, talking about, among other things, Bill’s latest ice sculptures. So this morning, my daughters and I prepared the pears by baking them. The prep for baked pears is less fussy and less time-consuming than than for poaching, which makes them an appealing dish not just for easy-going family weekends, but for small self-catered weddings, too.

Serve these baked pear halves with a slice of light wedding cake and homemade berry sauce for a complete wedding dessert, or include them as a side dish for an autumn or early winter wedding brunch. We’ll make the berry sauce recipe our next post.

Menorah Ice Carving Hanukkiah

BTW, here’s a pic of the Hanukkiah ice sculpture Bill carved today during a demonstration at Yeshiva Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in Manhattan.

Ingredients for Baked Pears

Serves 24

• 12 Bosc or Anjou pears
• Cooking oil spray
• ½ cup butter, melted (or for a pareve version to serve with a meat meal, use non-dairy margarine)
• 6 Tablespoons honey
• 1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Instructions for Baked Pears

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF (190ºC).
2. Lightly spray the bottom of two 9″x13″ baking pans with cooking oil.
3. Cut pears in half, cut out the core, and peel the pears.
4. 

   Make 4 slices in each pear half, stopping about a quarter inch from the narrow end of the pear.

   Optional: Make four slices in each pear half, stopping about ¼” from the small end. This will enable you to fan out the slices on the plate when you serve it. Or leave the halves unsliced for a more rustic presentation.
5. Place the pears flat side down in the baking pans.
6. Mix the melted butter, honey and spices. Drizzle the mixture over the pears.
7. Cover the pans and bake for 40 minutes or until the pears are tender.

The pears can be stored overnight, covered, in the refrigerator.

Should I Use Ribbons to Decorate the Corners of the Battenburg Lace Huppah?

I thought I’d share a question I received from one of our clients in Maine this week, along with my answer:

Q: Do people use ribbons on the corners of the Battenburg Lace Huppah? Is there an easy way to attach ribbons? How many ribbons work best at each corner?

A: People don’t usually use ribbons with this huppah, but you certainly could. Ribbons tie easily to the screw eyes at the tops of the poles that the canopy corners are tied to.

It’s tricky to advise you on how many ribbons to use, since I have seen brides decorate our huppahs in ways that haven’t occurred to me and look great. I would say, though, for the Battenburg Lace Huppah I would keep the effect subtle. The line of lace that goes across each overhang is a notable horizontal visual element, so I wouldn’t add ribbons that make a strong vertical statement that competes with the lace. I wouldn’t use a mix of strong colors. The number of ribbons would depend on the width; I wouldn’t use more than two 1″ wide ribbons, though you could mix narrower widths.

If you’re going to use ribbon, it works best if each ribbon is about 6-feet long and tied to the screw eyes at about the middle of the ribbon, so two 3-foot long ends hang down from each ribbon. If you vary the lengths of the two ends by an inch or so, the ribbons will have more movement, especially if they catch a breeze.

Real Jewish Wedding: Natalie + Richard Wed Under an Ivory Silk Huppah in a New York City Park

I love to see the ways couples decorate our huppahs. This week, Natalie sent photos of her wedding to Richard in a New York City park earlier this month. You can feel the joy just looking at the photos.

The simple, natural beauty of the flower petals on the ground is perfect for a spring wedding in the park.

To decorate the poles of the Ivory Silk Huppah, Natalie layered not just colors, but textures, too, with charcoal grey silk ribbons and tassels in a color that I’m going to call muted bronze.

Natalie found the ribbons and tassels at Jo Ann Fabrics. The tassels were in the curtain trimming isle, Natalie says, and she chose the ribbon from the ribbon isle, in medium width.

For other brides who want to recreate this effect, Natalie recommends, “make the ribbons longer, because I wished they would have flapped in the wind more.” Still, I can’t imagine they could have created any more joy.

Thanks so much for sharing, Natalie! All the best to you and Richard.

Related article: 7 Ways to Decorate a Huppah

Real Life Jewish Wedding: Under an Organza Huppah at Brooklyn, New York’s Prospect Boat House

Big thanks go out to Nancy for sending us this photo of her son and new daughter-in-law marrying under a Huppahs.com’s huppah earlier this month. The site for the wedding was the historic Prospect Park Boathouse, one of Brooklyn, New York’s most elegant landmarks.

“We all loved the ethereal feeling of the organza huppah,” Nancy wrote, “Set against the bucolic setting of the Prospect Park Boathouse, we could do no wrong. Bride and groom were thrilled.”

And we were thrilled to see the photo. Thanks for sharing, Nancy. Huppahs.com wishes you and your family all the best!

Now Trending for 2012 Weddings: Organza Dresses, Accessories, Decor…and Huppahs!

It’s only March, but I’m calling Huppah.com’s top huppah of 2012: the Organza Huppah. Organza always places among the top wedding fabrics, but this year it’s pulling away from the rest of the pack early. Organza’s light weave lets light diffuse through, creating a soft, romantic aura. The fabric has more drape than tulle and more body than chiffon, making it a great choice for dress overlays, fabric flowers and huppah canopies. Huppahs.com’s Organza Huppah features a thin ribbon scrolling across the fabric, to add texture and play gently with the light that filters down to the ceremony below.

In celebration of organza, I’ve gathered these organza wedding dresses, accessories, and decorations from some of my favorite Etsy designers:

“Acacia”, vintage-inspired tea length bridal gown from Ellana Couture.

“Floressa” organza flower bridal hairpin by PowderBlueBijoux.

Silver organza favor pouches with navy and white scalloped circle thank you tags by WeddingsBySusan.

Pale pink satin, organza flower girl dress with cascading vertical ruffles. For babies, toddlers, and girls, from Daisies + Damsels.

Organza chair sashes, custom made in a rainbow of colors by GiftsForHer26.

Whimsical organza bridal headband with rhinestone accents by TKDesignsetc.

“The Lucille”, Ivory organza bridal or bridesmaid satin sash or belt by Ted Zeppelynn’s Fine Wedding Accessories.

RELATED: Real Life Wedding: Alanna + Joe Share their Favorite Hangouts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Winter Wedding Hors d’Oeuvres Recipe: Latkes for a Crowd

Latkes are great dish to serve for a winter wedding, not just weddings at Hanukkah, because they are so satisfying on a cold day. You can serve them as an appetizer or with the entree as a tasty, creative alternative to baked potato or rice.

One year I had the pleasure of making latkes for a large group of American military service members. It was during Hanukkah in one of the four years I lived in Kuwait. This was between the Gulf Wars. My husband was the U.S. Defense Department’s designated lay leader for the Jewish service people who cycled through the country, which means that I was responsible for making holiday meals and parties for the Jewish service people in my home. It was a great time, we met a lot of really great people, and I hope they’re all now safe at home enjoying the country they’ve served.

On this particular Hanukkah evening, I was rushing to get ready for a crowd of service people who were coming for a party. I was in the middle of preparing the latke batter when they called on their way over to say that instead of the seven people that were expected, they were 16 people. I would need more latkes.

I started throwing all kinds of things into the bowl to bulk up the latke mix: more potatoes, more onions, more eggs, a couple boxes of dried latke mix that family had sent from the States, ricotta cheese, sour cream, and I’m not sure what else, maybe even some cream cheese. Of course, they were amazing, but because I didn’t keep track of exactly what went in them, I would never know how to reproduce them.

It’s OK that I don’t remember, because I want to give you a non-dairy latke that you can serve with any wedding meal, including meals that include meat. And I want to give you a version that is easy to prepare and can be made a day or two before the wedding. The recipe below is adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd: Recipes with a Vegetarian Emphasis for 24 or More, a book that I relied on heavily when serving large crowds in Kuwait. I raised the flavor profile a bit to create a more refined, wedding-worthy dish by adding sautéed leeks and a non-dairy sour cream with chives to serve on the side. Yum.

Recipe: Latkes for a Crowd (Parve)

Serves 24 (2 latkes per person)

Latke Ingredients

• 4 ½ lbs. potatoes
• 4 lbs. onions
• 2 cups chopped leeks
• 24 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. salt
• 1 ½ cups bread crumbs or matza meal
• 1 cup + 2 Tbsp vegetable oil

“Sour Cream” with Chives Ingredients

• 2 pints (4 cups) non-dairy sour cream
• ¼ cup chopped fresh chives

Latke Instructions

1. Chop the leeks and sautée over medium heat for 3 minutes until just translucent. Remove them from the heat and put them aside.
2. Grate the potatoes coarsely with a food processor or hand-held grater.
3. Put the potatoes into a colander and squeeze them to eliminate excess water.
4. Preheat the oven to 350º.
5. Grate the onions and drain them in a colander. Squeeze out the excess water.
6. In a large bowl, beat the eggs.
7. Add the potatoes, onions, leeks, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs or matzo meal. Mix well.
8. Pour ¼ cup of oil into the bottom of four half-size insert pans (12½” x 10¼” x 2″) and place them in the hot oven for 5 minutes.
9. Pour the batter into the hot pans. Spread the oil smoothly across the top of the batter with a spatula.
10. Bake uncovered for 30-40 minutes, or until crusty and golden.
11. While still hot, cut each pan into 12 latke squares.

“Sour Cream” with Chives Instructions

Make the sour cream the same day you intend to serve it. In a medium bowl mix the chopped chives into the non-dairy sour cream.

To Serve

• If your serve the latkes pre-plated, put two latkes on each plate and two tablespoons of “sour cream” next to the latkes.
• If you are using a buffet, serve the “sour cream” in a bowl next to the latkes.

Make Ahead Options

You can make the latkes a day before the wedding. Cover them with foil and keep refrigerated. Reheat in 350º oven for 10-12 minutes.