Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Authentic Jewish Rye and Other Breads

I was a professinal baker for close to 15 years and started by apprenticing on a 19th century coal-fired oven in Newark, NJ. This book has all of the trade secrets and techniques that are usually passed down through families and guarded by professionals. Family bakeries are a dying business and this book will do well to carry on the recipes and make them available to anyone who wants them (and who doesn't have access to anything other than a megamart bakery). BUY THIS BOOK and study it well... It includes scaled down versions of actual commercial recipes and techniques. I used it as a reference in my shop as well!

Rob Schwartzberg

A friend told me about the challah recipe here. It's a marvel, and it's just about fool proof, with great shaping illustrations. I'd buy it again for this recipe alone. This book has become one of my staples. The professional baking tips are very useful, but I have to complain about any baking book that sends you to your friendly local bakery to plead for special ingredients, as this one does. Also, this book is big on baking with steam, which isn't a great idea for your slightly klutzy home baker (like me). But those recipes work pretty well without steam, in my opinion. Okay, so I cheat a little with these recipes--yet the breads still come out yummy! Don't count on this book for desserts, though. It's a BREAD book, and a very good one, particularly for people who want to understand the process and learn to do it right.

At first glance there isn't much to grab your attention in this book. No glossy colour pictures (in a cookbook, unbelievable) and the recipes look basic (a little yeast, a little water, a little flour...). But you REALLY have to read this book. The details, the tips, the tricks of the trade and the methods that Greenstein explains really do make a difference!

Greenstein has converted the recipes to be made by hand, food processor or mixer. We have a small mixer and simply halved the quantities. I cannot stress enough the surprise at how effective the results were. There was huge "WOW" factor getting the bread out of the oven.

This book has a good range of recipes for breads and things made with yeast. There is an assortment of ethnic recipes and all the favourites from bagels, foccacia, croissants, to scones and muffins. I particularly enjoyed his annecdotes and favourite toppings. Greenstein has also included 12 programmes for "a morning of baking" which set out how to fit together making a variety of breads in a short time.

On the downside, a separate ingredients index would have been useful. For example, after buying rice flour I then had to look through the whole book to find the relevant recipe. The fact that it is so short on pictures is not really a problem as the results speak for themselves.

Please God, when I die let me be Jewish!

It's hard to believe that a book like this exists, since it claims to give all the secrets of Jewish baking to anyone smart enough to read the book. If anything, this is an understatement -- this book will teach you how to make nearly all of the New York-area ethnic breads, cookies, and cakes that I've ever seen.

I've tried about 10 of the recipes -- unusual for me, since I often only get 2 or 3 good recipes from a cookbook -- and every one has been great. The bagels taste like real bagels (not the Bruegger's sort), the black-and-white cookies have the right cake-like texture and not the sugar cookie base most non-New Yorkers use, the challah is definitive, and so on.

The book is an absolute must for anyone stuck out in the middle of nowhere (like I was) without a proper bakery. Even in larger metro areas, local variants on "proper" pizza, rye breads, etc. will drive you to insanity if you don't have this book. If I were to fault the book, it would be on its treatment of sourdough breads -- the recipes rely on added yeast for reliable rising. Still, from croissants and pizza to Kaiser rolls and sour rye, these are fantastic recipes: authentic and able to be made by a relatively inexperienced baker.

At the time, I was looking for a book with a decent recipe for bagels (a tough thing to get in Houston without some imagination). I found Mr. Greenstein's book -- in keeping with most great discoveries! -- by accident. I doubt that you'll get more for your money anywhere else. Maybe you'll get its equal (Mr. Clayton's book comes to mind), but you won't beat it. The breads are great. And to quote my cousin: "Those were the best bagels I ever had. Honest to God." They were because of Mr. Greenstein, not me, but you probably get the idea.