Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Recipes for 125 Breads from Around the World [Hardcover]

George Greenstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2007

For more than twenty years, George Greenstein owned and operated a Long Island bakery that produced all sorts of baked goods, from all sorts of ethnic traditions—focaccia and Irish soda bread, Bavarian pumpernickel and naan—including many from his own culture, such as Jewish corn bread, challah, and bagels. His bakery was one of those neighborhood treasures where every weekday evening commuters picked up brown paper bags filled with a dozen Vienna rolls straight from the oven, and every weekend morning lines extended out the door for hours.In this James Beard Award-winning cookbook, Greenstein reveals 125 recipes for the yeasted and quick breads that have been handed down through his family by three generations of bakers—the breads that made his bakery so well-loved for so many years. And now that most neighborhood bakeries like Greenstein's are long since closed, this classic collection serves not only to teach bakers everywhere how to make those delicious, classic breads, but it also preserves authentic versions of the included Jewish recipes for all to enjoy.With the same helpful features that made this a cherished cookbook upon its original publication—separate instructions for mixing each recipe by hand, food processor, and stand mixer; tips for baking a week's worth of bread in as few as two hours; invaluable baker's secrets; and a very approachable style throughout—this revised edition also includes twelve new recipes to satisfy both old fans and new. So bring the spirit of that great old bakery back to life right in your very own kitchen, filling every room of your house with the wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread. And rest assured you'll bake with ease and success every time, thanks to George and his long-learned, very happily shared SECRETS OF A JEWISH BAKER.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Amateur bread bakers of every skill level will love Greenstein's collection of recipes that demonstrate his natural skill at teaching as well as baking (he operated a Jewish bakery in Long Island for more than 20 years). Excellent opening chapters on ingredients, tools and techniques, from kneading basics to microwave tricks and tips on identifying how a bread failed, are followed by well-chosen beginner loaves; the remaining recipes are divided into potato and corn breads, a catch-all "international" category ranging from Bavarian Farmer Bread to Indian naan, and chapters on sourdoughs, small breads and quick breads. Recipes like focaccia and Irish soda bread may be overly familiar, but Greenstein also offers such a delightful array of unusual breads, like sesame-flavored Greek Psomi or the scone-like Singing Hinny, that even expert bakers will find something new. Twelve menus for "mornings of baking" each yield enough breads to last throughout the week, aiming at time-pressed bakers, though even the experienced may have difficulty fitting the work into one morning. Despite the title, stereotypically Jewish breads are a minority, but Greenstein takes care to tell how to make most recipes kosher; bakers of all religions will appreciate the inclusion of guidelines for mixing dough in the food processor or stand mixer alongside the traditional method, as well as numerous v ariation ideas. Greenstein's expert guidance puts homemade bread within reach of anyone intimidated by the process, and makes baking a treat again for those who thought they had tried every loaf. This publication is an updated version of
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Review

“An essential purchase for anyone serious about baking bread.” —Newsday“Packed with wisdom and useful tips.”—Baltimore Sun “There are many excellent bread books, but only a few for the serious home baker are truly must-have. This is one of them. George Greenstein's knowledge is in his bones, in his hands, and in his heart. It all comes through in this classic collection of indispensable recipes and master techniques.”—Peter Reinhart, author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice“You could scratch the adjective ‘Jewish' from the title of SECRETS OF A JEWISH BAKER . Although Mr. Greenstein, a professional baker, happens to be Jewish, he has written a fairly comprehensive general bread-baking book.”—Florence Fabricant, New York Times“While other bakers aim to educate readers about the nature of bread, Greenstein's purpose is purely gustatory. He wants us to bake, eat, and enjoy.”—Vegetarian Times

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press; Revised edition (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580088449
• ISBN-13: 978-1580088442
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 1.1 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #253,490 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Diet > Kosher

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for the serious baker, June 16, 2007

By 

H. Grove "Errant Dreams Reviews" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Recipes for 125 Breads from Around the World (Hardcover)

The point of "Secrets of a Jewish Baker" is not just to provide you with recipes, but rather to help you create professional-quality loaves in your own kitchens. If you find you have difficulty making a truly light and airy loaf of bread, a whole-grain loaf that's tasty as well as nutritious, or a crusty loaf like your favorite baker's, you won't have any trouble with these tasks by the time you've made a few recipes from this book.

The book opens with wonderful notes on basic materials you'll need (as well as optional ones), ingredients, special bakers' techniques, handy tricks and tips to make things easier on yourself, and even a trouble-shooting section to help you figure out what might have gone wrong with a loaf of bread and how to fix it. Usually such sections teach me nothing new; here I definitely learned things.

As for the recipes, they come out nothing short of stunning. The cheese bread disappeared so fast you'd think it had been a figment of our imaginations. Most surprisingly for me, the cracked wheat bread and bran bread disappeared just as quickly-I think of bran as tasteless and unappealing, but these healthy breads were moist, tender, and delicious. The coffee cake made a yummy (if rather sinful) breakfast, as did the peach streusel muffins. The techniques for creating great crusts worked like magic, particularly on the Irish raisin bread, which was similarly delightful.

The book includes a handful of morning "programs" of baking that interleave instructions for several recipes at once, enabling you to easily make a week's worth of bread in one morning. This worked beautifully for us. The recipes also include variations designed for the food processor and the six-quart stand mixer, with different ratios of ingredients to take advantage of those items' form-factors; thus you can easily adapt the recipes to the equipment you have on hand. My only warning is that the stand mixer recipes seem sized to the new, heaviest-duty six-quart stand mixers, so be sure to double-check your mixer's rating for how many cups of flour it can tolerate. (You can always use his basic recipe amounts in your stand mixer if it won't tolerate the higher-quantity mixer variations.)

This is a stunning bread cookbook, particularly for anyone who wants to make professional-quality breads in their home kitchen, or who wants recipes for healthy, whole-grain breads that taste amazing!

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not glossy and slick, but a goldmine of great recipes!, May 17, 2007

By 

Arnold L. Weisenberg "Violin Man" (Coastal Maine) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Recipes for 125 Breads from Around the World (Hardcover)

As a child, I hung around bakeries. That was in the '40s and '50s when bakers followed recipes written on scraps of paper, dough rested in giant troughs, and loaves were formed by hand. I still make Kaiser rolls the way those bakers did, by smacking the ball of dough with the edge of one hand, to make flaps that get folded over the top of the roll. This book is like a bakers collection of recipe cards, and includes the hints that were scrawled on the back of the cards. These are traditional bread recipes, well detailed and documented. Quantities are a bit loose as they have to be, like '4 to 4 1/2 cups', and might bedevil someone who wants recipes with exact weight of ingredients. But, bread baking is a craft, not a science. For those who want to bake like a baker, this book is a goldmine. The Rye Bread and Corn Bread recipes yielded perfect NY style breads. And I'll keep working my way through the breads over time. George, you did good!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic book for new bakers, February 19, 2009

By 

Lazy Cook (Virginia Beach, VA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Recipes for 125 Breads from Around the World (Hardcover)

I'm somewhat new to bread baking and I found this book to be informative and flexible with its recipes and directions. I started with the King Arthur Baker's Companion, but was a bit discouraged by the lack of variation in the recipes (mostly white wheat flour, lots of dairy, great chemistry review but not as much direction as I needed). This book, on the other hand, lists a white and whole wheat variation for almost every recipe, recommends substitutes to keep the recipes kosher/dairy free, and has a variation for food processor/steel blade and stand mixer for almost every recipe. The chapters include: basic materials, bread making from A to Z, basic yeast bread, corn and potato based breads, breads of all nations, sourdough breads, rolls, biscuits and muffins, quick breads, and twelve menus of baking. I've followed several recipes and have had great success with all. I've been trying to make a 6-braided challah without success for a few weeks now; I had followed written directions and watched videos that helped but always left me hanging mid-braid, but the directions in this book made it so simple to understand that I had it down in minutes. Now I can't see what was so hard about it! Finally, my son can't have dairy or soy, and so the recommended substitutes and notes when a dairy ingredient are optional in a recipe are really helpful.