Paula Shoyer - The Holiday Kosher Baker Traditional & Contemporary Holiday Desserts

THE

HOLIDAY

KOSHER BAKER

TRADITIONAL & CONTEMPORARY
HOLIDAY DESSERTS

PAULA SHOYER

STERLING and the distinctive Sterling logo
are registered trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

2013 by Paula Shoyer

The following recipes, in original or modified form, are reprinted with permission from The Kosher Baker University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH: Pignons; Cranberry and Orange Spelt Scones; Chocolate and Almond Croissants; Whole-Wheat Chocolate Babka; Chocolate Ganache Layer Cake Squares with Fruit Sauce; Vanilla and Chocolate 12-Layer Cake; Ombr Layer Cake; Chocolate Pistachio Molten Cakes; Whole Grain Challah; Everything Rugelach; Decorated Cookies with Royal Icing; Olive Oil Challah; Decorated Brownie Bites; Chocolate Chip Hamantaschen; Red Velvet Hamantaschen; Green Tea Hamantaschen; Farfel Cookies; Dried Fruit and Nut Candies; Lemon Layer Cake; Chocolate Chip, Pistachio, Cranberry, and Hazelnut Biscotti; Key Lime Pie; Flourless Chocolate Amaretti Cake; Brioche Challah; Lemon Tart with Basil Nut Crust.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4549-0715-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shoyer, Paula.

The holiday kosher baker : traditional & contemporary holiday desserts / Paula Shoyer ; photographs by Michael Bennett Kress.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-4549-0715-2 (hardback)

1. Jewish cooking. 2. Desserts. 3. Baking. 4. Holiday cooking. I. Title.

TX724.S533 2013

641.5676dc23

2013017403

For information about custom editions, special sales, and premium and corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales at 800-805-5489 or specialsales@sterlingpublishing.com.

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www.sterlingpublishing.com

Photographs by Michael Bennett Kress

This book is dedicated to my five favorite people in the entire world:
My loving and supportive husband, Andy,
and my amazing children, Emily, Sam, Jake, and Joey.
My wish is that you stay as sweet as you already are.

T hree years ago, one of my greatest dreams was realized with the publication of The Kosher Baker: 160 Dairy-Free Desserts from Traditional to Trendy (Brandeis 2010). It took me five years to get that book into the world. I was certain that the kosher community needed it, because every kiddush and event I went to was still serving the same boring parve desserts I had eaten since I was a child. Kosher food was becoming more gourmet and kosher desserts needed to catch up. The Kosher Baker started my kosher baking revolution.

Since then, I have been on a book tour that never seems to end. I have traveled throughout the United States and Canada conducting baking demonstrations for Jewish groupsand learning that home bakers are among the happiest people you will ever meet. Several miracles, big and small, happened along the way.

First, I will relate the bigger miracles. One day, back in December 2010, I received an email from a woman named Brochi from Chabad of Sea Gate, Brooklyn, inquiring about my availability to do a cooking demonstration for her community. Sea Gate is where my mother grew up. I called Brochi and asked if her Chabad house was located at 3844 Lyme Avenue and she replied, Yeeesss?! I proceeded to tell her that 3844 Lyme Avenue was once my grandparents house. I knew that it had become a Chabad house because, when my grandmother died at the age of 98after a lifetime of bakingthe rabbi who officiated at her funeral was the rabbi of Chabad of Sea Gate. Then Rivkah Brikman, the rabbis wife, got on the phone and she could not believe that the person she was speaking to, and whom she wanted for the cooking class, was the granddaughter of the family she had heard so much about.

Where would I be doing the demonstration? In my grandmothers kitchen!The same grandma to whom The Kosher Baker book is dedicated, and the grandma who gave me my first taste of delicious homemade desserts.

I taught the class to 45 women, some of whom had connections to my grandparents. My daughter Emily, my aunt Ethelind Wiener, and my parents Reubin and Toby Marcus were there too. I expected to be overwhelmed with emotion. Instead, I felt extremely calm, happy, and at peace, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be back in my grandmothers house after 24 years. At that moment I knew that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing precisely what I was meant to be doing.

The second miracle was more of my own creation. For several years I had auditioned for television cooking shows, and though I was never cast, the experiences gave me great material for comedy at speaking engagements. At one audition, for example, I was asked to show them a dance move. When I read about a new dessert competition show, I auditioned simply to get more material. This time, however, the joke was on me, and I was cast for the first season of Food Networks Sweet Genius. I did not win, but I had a really great time. It was the hardest professional day I have ever experienced, but it was quite exciting to be on the beautiful set and prove to myself that, even in my late forties, I could challenge myself in a whole new way. I was happy with my performance, particularly because judge Ron Ben Israel enjoyed the taste of my creations, and my cookbook and the word kosher were mentioned on national television. I had never thought of myself as a brave person before, but being on that show made me feel like a warrior, albeit one channeling Julia Child.

The smaller miracles are no less important. In the past few years I have heard from people who told me that my book inspired them to start baking. A new bride wrote that my recipes connected her with her grandmothers who had long since died. My nursery school teacher ended up in the audience of a class I taught in New York City. A woman in New Jersey started a small business selling desserts based on my recipes to help support her family. I inspired a teenage boy to sell babkas out of his house. A man in his eighties was my assistant when I baked for an event in Michigan. The kosher bakers of the Midwest, who have no kosher bakeries for miles and miles, made me feel like I had written the book just for them.

These beautiful experiences nourished my soul and convinced me that I had to keep going, pushing the community toward even better, more contemporary, easier, and healthier desserts. The kosher baking revolution continues.

While The Kosher Baker is meant to be your weekly Shabbat dessert handbook, The Holiday Kosher Baker will become, I hope, your new holiday baking manifesto. It is designed to fit the way you think about holiday desserts. For every Jewish holiday you need beautiful desserts for entertaining at festive meals, but for major, longer holidays you also need snacks. The Holiday Kosher Baker has recipes that are gluten-free, vegan, nut-free, and low in sugar. In other words, in this book, theres something for everyone in the Jewish community. It includes contemporary twists on traditional desserts to remind people of their grandmothers, yet it brings the desserts they love completely up to date.