The World of Jewish Desserts: More Than 300 Delectable Recipes from Jewish Communities from Alsace to India

by Gil Marks

From the rabbi, chef, writer, historian and author of World of Jewish Cooking and The World of Jewish Entertaining comes this book featuring over 300 desserts gathered from Jewish communities all over... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684870037
• ISBN13: 9780684870038
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.7" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Recipes that Bubbe would be proud of...

Gil Marks, rabbi, chef, and author of The WORLD OF JEWISH COOKING: More Than 500 Traditional Recipes from Alsace to Yemen, The World of Jewish Entertaining: Menus and Recipes for the Sabbath, Holidays, and Other Family Celebrations and the Jewish vegetarian treasury Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World, has truly outdone himself with The World of Jewish Desserts. A collection of over 400 desserts from every corner of the Diaspora from Alsace to Yemen, Marks has thought of everything the potential Jewish dessert baker needs to know. His brief introduction includes a primer on common ingredients (flour, leavenings, fats, sweeteners, eggs, nuts), measuring, high altitude baking, and more. The book is divided into yeast cakes and pastries, cakes, cookies and bars, pastries and filled cookies, phyllo and strudel, fried pastries, pancakes, baked puddings and kugels, stovetop puddings and creamy desserts, fruit desserts, confections, and Passover desserts. Each recipe is clearly written and many include numerous delectable variations (also included are tips on how to make a dairy recipe pareve when possible). The book is sparsely illustrated with an ornate blue border and scattered blue pen-and-ink drawings of various recipes and ingredients. In Marks' usual style, each recipe includes its origin, original name, and what holidays it's traditionally served on. Naturally, World of Jewish Desserts includes such well-known Jewish desserts as hamantaschen, rugelach, mandelbrot, blintzes, and cheesecake, but also includes a veritable treasure trove of Sephardic recipes including pumpkin (Italian pumpkin cake, Sephardic pancakes, candied pumpkin) that are perfect for fall, Indian recipes featuring coconut, mango, and tangerine that lend a refreshing tropical air to summer Sabbath dinners, numerous Middle Eastern recipes in rose and orange blossom syrups, and a valuable section on both traditional Hanukkah (fried pastries) and Passover (matza) desserts. These are simple, delicious desserts that bring back happy memories of Bubbe's (or Babcia's) kitchen, with recipes from every corner of the globe that are sure to please, whether you're looking for the perfect sour cream coffeecake, chocolate babka, lekach, poppy seed roll, or something more exotic.

An appealing, involving cookbook

The World of Jewish Desserts provides recipes with a fine background by gourmet cook Rabbi Marks, who gathers Jewish recipes from Jewish communities around the world. The international focus of the Jewish dessert recipes makes for an appealing, involving cookbook which provides a very surprising variety of Jewish dessert choices. No photos, but the amount of research and depth to this title makes them less necessary.

if u think Jewish desserts stopped at honey cake, read this

Gil Marks, a rabbi, historian, linguistic detective and the author of three other books on kosher cooking and entertaining, provides a taste of not only the dishes, but the history of the Jewish communities that developed and transformed the dishes. And I don't mean an insert here and there, I am talking a page for each essay. For example, the story of German Jewish cooking, or Salonika Greek Jewry. I guarantee that you'll never look at a latka the same way after reading his latest book. The book opens with a treatise on cooking and baking. Did you ever wonder why fat is added to Jewish desserts (butters, oils, etc)? Is it any wonder that the person who introduced dry yeast (the kind that can be activated in your home by adding water) was a Hungarian Jew named Fleischmann? It's in the book. The chapters headings follow this format: Yeast Cakes and Pastries; Cakes; Cookies; Filled Cookies; Strudels and Phyllo; Fried Pastries; Pan Cakes; Baked Puddings and Kugels; Stovetop Puddings; Fruit based Desserts; Confections; and a whole chapter for Passover Pesach desserts/ For each recipe, Marks adds a tidbit of history or Semitic semantics. For example, for the Kuchen Buchen recipe, Marks discusses Yiddish rhyming, or for the recipe for Makosh Poppy Seed Rolls, he writes about how the German Mohn (poppy) filled cakes evolved into the Polish Makowiec rolls and German Makosh. Add some Hungarian cocoa, and you turn Makosh into Kakosh. Recipes are included for Debla; Lokmas; Loukoumades (in time for Hanukkah); Bombay Malpuah Banana Fritters; stuffed dates; blintzes; latkas of all sorts; marzipan, the Indian Jewish rice pudding called Kheer; Seffa; Brot Kugel; an Indian Carrot Halvah Pudding; an Alsatian Apple Charlotte (ApfelSchalet); a grandmother load that Seinfeld would know as a Babka; Schnecken; Haman-taschen; prune lekvar; Sephardic style Parmak, Moroccan Jewish Fakasch; Persian Klaitcha; Apfelkaka (don't you just love that name?); Iraqi Jewish Rayka Tamir; Lakach honey cake; Lepeny; strudels; Rugelach with a variety of fillings; Kadayif; Kindli; Kranszli; Farfel bars (not just for soup, you know); Biscotti (did you know that means twice baked?); Basboosah (a dessert, not a type of bus); Dobostorte 7 layer cake; and even a Gebleterter Kugel (a type of fluden).