The cover image alone, draws you and is alluring to any home baker. As a baker and someone who enjoys delicious bakery pastries, who wouldn’t want to delve in and discover pastry secrets from a Jewish baker?
The author, George Greenstein, owned and operated a Long Island bakery for over 20 years and was infamous for his baked goods originating from various ethnic traditions. James Beard Award winner for his cookbook, “Secrets of a Jewish Baker”, Greenstein passed away in 2012 but left an unfinished, 15-year in the making manuscript. The unpublished work was finally published by his children and grandchildren with the delicious accumulation of their father/grandfather’s recipes and secrets in “A Jewish Baker’s Pastry Secrets: Recipes from a New York Baking Legend for Strudel, Stollen, Danishes, Puff Pastry, and More.”
The introduction includes a scaled down recipe for rugelach as the editors didn’t feel it fit well in the book’s chapters. The first two opening chapters include excellent tips and invaluable pointers on the equipment, tools and the ingredients used to achieve optimal results; basic techniques and recipes that serve as a basis for the other recipes in the books, like almond pasteola, frangipane, pastry creams, glazes and butters. Each chapter is laden with the author’s “Baker’s Secrets” and variation suggestions.
The remaining eight chapters are sectioned into the type of master recipe that it opens with like Bundt, Babka, Strudel, Gugelopf and Portuguese Sweet Bread, Stollen and Polish Kolacz, Puff Pastry, Charlotte Dough, and Danish Pastries. For example, Bundt dough is a basic sweet yeast-raised dough and is the basis of many other breads and pastries like cheese, sticky, and streusel buns, and Bienerstück.
Looking forward to trying my semi-experienced hand at this level of pastry making, I’ve started with the Bundt Dough as the basic dough for the Streusel Buns. There’s a very important note about the Bundt Dough as to its portioned yield that really should’ve been noted on the page of the recipe itself. Little inconsistencies like this can make following the recipes a challenge. As you’ll most likely be using portions of the master recipe bundt dough and freezing the rest for later use, it would have been invaluable to have some information as to how to best store the portioned dough in the freezer and about how long it will keep.
What I like about the recipes in the book is that the ingredients and portions are attainable for both the amateur, professional, or home baker. However, besides the gorgeous photos of the pastries on the front and back dust jacket of the book, there are no other photos or illustrations of the baked goods. There’s not even an inside note as to what the cover/back images are in case you’d like to try making those too. While the exclusion of any graphical elements inside the cookbook is not a deterrent for me, I can see how it will leave many people disappointed with its lack of images. As I am not familiar with most of the recipe titles, I may need to look them up on the internet to try to get an idea of what I’m making and what it might look like.
It’s a treasure collection of baking and pastry recipes. There are a couple of the recipes I will finish off with the Bundt Dough I’ve started and will write follow-ups to this review with my finished baked treats.
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