The Kosher Baker Cookbook

The Kosher Baker: Over 160 Dairy-free Recipes from Traditional to Trendy, Paula Shoyer, has been getting lots of press attention. Stacy Finz wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that:

Shoyer, the owner of Paula's Parisian Pastries Cooking School in the Washington D.C., area, spends more than 300 pages modernizing Jewish classics such as babka, honey cake and hamentaschen and creating kosher versions of today's trendiest desserts - favorites like red velvet cupcakes. She even gives instruction on how to make French pastries sans the butter.

Product Description
Producing flavorful and appealing kosher desserts has been a challenge in Jewish households throughout the ages. Without access to butter, cream, milk, cheese, yogurt, or other dairy products, creating a tasty and memorable dessert for family and friends requires more than simple substitutions and compromises. Now pastry chef and teacher Paula Shoyer provides the inspiration and innovation to turn the age-old challenges of parve baking into delectable delights in her one-of-a-kind kosher cookbook.

The Kosher Baker is your indispensable kitchen companion to a wide range of dairy-free desserts, from family favorites and time-honored holiday classics to stylish and delicious surprises of Shoyer's own careful creation. It even includes desserts not usually found on a kosher table, such as creamy key lime pie, luscious flan, and rich tiramisu. You'll find everything from cookies, biscotti, breads and muffins to pastries, tarts, fancy cakes, and mousses. Shoyer guides you through more than 160 mouth-watering recipes and expands every non-dairy baker's repertoire with simple, clear instructions and a friendly yet authoritative voice.

The Kosher Baker is organized as a tutorial into three primary sections--Quick and Elegant Desserts, Two Step Desserts, and Multiple Step Desserts--allowing the busy home baker to choose a dessert based on both taste and time constraints. The first section presents the fundamentals of simple kosher baking in the form of everyday treats like Amaretto Cookies, Orange Tea Cake, and Apple Pastry. The next two sections teach increasingly more challenging desserts, from a Challah Beer Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce to Chocolate Babka. A special fourth section includes chapters on baking Challah, Passover desserts, and no-sugar-added desserts.

The Kosher Baker has something for everyone in the Jewish household for any occasion or holiday. It spills over with detailed information, including tips on storage, freezing, and thawing; tools; must-have ingredients; and tips and techniques. Anyone baking for those with special dietary needs such as food allergies or diabetic concerns will also find recipes to love in this comprehensive collection. It even includes recipes for nut- and gluten-free desserts, and vegan desserts.

No Jewish home should be without this essential cookbook!

List price: $35.00
348 pages
Brandeis University Press/University Press of New England, 2010

Wait, what? A cookbook published by a university press? That's weird... No wonder it's getting more press attention than usual.

You can also watch Shoyer sharing her recipe for quick, kosher fruit tarts on a video from a Washington local news program.