Description
Product Description
This follow-up to the author's James Beard award-winning Secrets of a Jewish Baker is a charming collection of European-style bakery classics, such as coffee cake and strudel.
George Greenstein had a gift for teaching home bakers to think, work, and bake like the pros with his evocative and tactile descriptions of baking. In
A Jewish Baker’s Pastry Secrets, he crafts master dough recipes for Jewish holiday baking and European classics, creating a comprehensive set of building blocks for both beginners and baking enthusiasts. Greenstein’s expert guidance for making doughs like bundt, babka, strudel, gugelhopf, stollen, pressburger, puff pastry, and Danish create a jumping-off point for more than 200 variations of classic pastries, including napoleons, coffee cakes, and sweet buns. The book also offers an in-depth guide to ingredients and equipment, including both professional and home ovens, as well as basic recipes for fillings, icings, and glazes. With Greenstein’s steady guidance and familiar voice, home bakers and professionals alike will be encouraged to turn out flawless pastry creations for any occasion.
Review
“Lucky for us,
A Jewish Baker’s Pastry Secrets are no longer secret. The recipes and techniques are classic and crisply instructional; the stories and comments are touching and softly personal. Any doubt that food is indeed love will be dispelled at the first turn of the cover.”
—
Mollie Katzen, author of
The Moosewood Cookbook
“
It is sad that George Greenstein is no longer with us, but if there is any way in which an
inspired baker should be remembered it is through making available some of his best work. This book and his
Secrets of a Jewish Baker form an invaluable repository of a deeply admired baking tradition—personal, authentic, and totally usable.”
—
Nach Waxman, founding partner of Kitchen Arts & Letters
“I am thrilled that George’s second book,
A Jewish Baker’s Pastry Secrets, is filled with the sweet pastries and cakes that didn’t make it into the first book. George finished it before he died, and the headnotes bring back his kind voice and good humor, while his always meticulously detailed directions and revelatory ‘secrets’ ensure baking success.”
—
Arthur Schwartz, journalist, radio personality, and cookbook author
"There's a lot to love about this book, but one of the best parts is the attitude towards pastries and breads; they are meant to be shared, and making them is both a joy and an art."
—
Lisa Spangenberg,
Huffington Post and
Sleeping Hedgehog
About the Author
George Greenstein was a third-generation professional baker who owned and ran a Jewish bakery, The Cheesecake King, on Long Island for twenty years. There he baked his favorites, like Jewish rye, cheese, and cinnamon raisin breads—much to the delight of his wife, children, and grandchildren. He passed away in 2012. This is his second book.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Elaine and Julia Greenstein, daughters of George Greenstein
Our early childhood memories are of our parents spending more time in the bakery than they did at home. After school and on weekends, we often played in the back of the bakery, drawing pictures, reading books, folding and assembling cake boxes, or running small errands. In fact, before we were even tolerated at the bakery, we folded cake boxes while parked in front of the TV set at home!
When we were tall enough to look over the counter, we started waiting on customers and helping with various jobs in the production areas. We were most often assigned jobs forming dough into pastries such as crumb buns and rugelach. We longed to get our hands on the icing and finishing equipment or to mix the batters, but the answer was always, “no.” Sometimes we felt like elves in a production line: standing on milk crates, assembling one tray after another of pastries from enormous batches of dough.
Even thou