This week: Hamantaschen, Jewish baking, cookbook previews & giveaways, culinary news

The Jewish holiday of Purim commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people from Haman’s persecution in ancient Persia. In my social media feed earlier this week, friends celebrating Purim shared tempting photographs of hamentaschen, a symbolic food eaten during this holiday. In Hebrew, hamentaschen means ears of Haman, and are triangular-shaped cookies that represent either Haman’s ears or his three-cornered hat. The center of each “hat” is filled with jam or a sweet filling.

The photo above is of Smitten Kitchen’s Hamantaschen which is filled with raspberry, blackberry, and apricot preserves. Deb Perelman has two additional versions on her blog Rhubarb hamantaschen and Apricot hazelnut brown butter hamantaschen. There are 168 recipes in our Library for this particular pastry (38 online recipes) that feature a variety of fillings and tender dough.

I am fascinated by the rich history of Jewish cuisine, particularly with regard to baking. New York is home to a wealth of bakeries that our family enjoyed visiting while we lived there. Since we’ve been in Denver, I’ve resorted to making my own bagels, rugelach (online recipes), and mandelbrot (online recipes). My creations were delicious but I miss being able to pick up these treats whenever the urge hit me.

A few of my favorite cookbooks on Jewish baking include:

• A Jewish Baker’s Pastry Secrets: Recipes from a New York Baking Legend for Strudel, Stollen, Danishes, Puff Pastry, and More by George Greenstein
• A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking by Marcy Goldman
• Inside the Jewish Bakery: Recipes and Memories from the Golden Age of Jewish Baking by Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg
• Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Recipes for 125 Breads from Around the World by George Greenstein
• Modern Jewish Baker: Challah, Babka, Bagels & More by Shannon Sarna

We have over 830 cookbooks that are devoted to Jewish cuisine in our library. The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York, with More Than 800 Ashkenazi and Sephardi Recipes by Claudia Roden and Jewish Cooking in America by Joan Nathan are the two most popular titles on our members’ shelves.

Other articles of interest:

• How to make perfect Hamantaschen
• Ridiculously good rugelach
• Twenty Years of Better Baking – Author Profile – Marcy Goldman

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This Week on our Blog

Since our last roundup, Darcie has written articles on the following topics:   Jessica B. Harris receives the JBF Lifetime Achievement Award, the smoke point of certain cooking fats, missed opportunities in the restaurant world, difficult, but rewarding, baking projects, and the announcement of GBBO’s new host. Darcie’s weekly food news antipasto is shared every Sunday (#foodnews brings up these information-packed posts).

I have religiously been updating our 2020 preview post with new titles and links to author events. Finding a new title is like peeking into a future gift. Just a few titles to be on the lookout for: Jamie Oliver’s 7 Ways: Easy Ideas for Every Day of the Week, Cook with Me: 150 Recipes for the Home Cook by Alex Guarnaschelli, Ina Garten’s Modern Comfort Food, Sami Tamimi’s Falastin, Yotam Ottolenghi’s Ottolenghi Flavour (Ottolenghi is touring this year with Samin Nosrat), Vivian Howard’s This Will Make It Taste Good, Jonathan Waxman’s The Barbuto Cookbook, Nigella Lawson’s Cook, Eat, Repeat: Ingredients, Recipes and Stories, Eric Ripert’s Vegetable Simple, Erin McDowell’s The Book on Pie, GBBO’s Kim-Joy’s Christmas with Kim-Joy, and Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Rose’s Ice Cream Bliss.

Our calendar has been updated with events for Gaby Dalkin and now shares the events for Readings and Scrumptious Reads in Australia. Topping and Company in the UK has a great many cookbook author events planned as well. Please double-check to make sure these events haven’t been postponed or canceled. 

Lastly, we are adding plant-based cooking options to our Eat Your Books Cookbook Club so please check out that article and add your input.

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Member Photo of the Week

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Croissants from The Art of French Pastry by Jacquy Pfeiffer and Martha Rose Shulman submitted by our darcie_b

Have you uploaded any of your own photos yet? Learn more!

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Featured Online Recipe

Better-than-takeout black pepper chicken from The Kitchn by Alex Snodgrass

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EYBDigital Previews

Recently we uploaded our 633rd EYBDigital Preview where a selection of full sample pages is available for the following cookbooks.

Learn more about EYBDigital Previews.

Note: To learn why you cannot add all EYBDigital Preview recipes to your Bookshelf, please read this Help page.

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• 3 recipes from Beyond Borscht: Old World Recipes from Ukraine and Eastern Europe by Tatyana Nesteruk Pub date 3/31/2020
• 8 cocktail recipes from Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: Prohibition Centennial Edition: From the 1920 Pick-Me-Up to the Zombie and Beyond – 150+ Rediscovered Recipes … With a New Introduction and 66 New Recipes by Ted Haigh
• 4 recipes from The Smoke Shop’s Backyard BBQ: Eat, Drink, and Party Like a Pitmaster by Andy Husbands and William Salazar
• 3 recipes from Charred: The Complete Guide to Vegetarian Grilling and Barbecue by Genevieve Taylor UK Pub 5/30/2019 and US Pub date 5/5/2020

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Cookbook Giveaways
Click on the Blue Link Below to Enter

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• Enter our US giveaway to win a copy of Salt & Time: Recipes from a Modern Russian Kitchen by Alissa Timoshkina Expires April 5th, 2020.
• Enter our giveaway to win a copy of Provence: The Cookbook by Caroline Rimbert Craig in our giveaway (two copies US, one copy worldwide provided by Eat Your Books) Expires April 7th, 2020.
• Enter our US giveaway to win one of five copies of Rachael Ray 50: Memories and Meals from a Sweet and Savory Life: A Cookbook by Rachael Ray and one grand prize winner will receive a set of Racheal Ray’s Create Delicious cookware. Expires April 11th, 2020.

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Be sure to enter all our current giveaways!

View Past Weekly Roundups

Please note that I covered this particular pastry (and Jewish baking in general) as I am very interested in same. I hope that our members are as well. Many times in The Cookbook Junkies, members ask about favorite Jewish baking/cooking books, particular pastries and more. Since Purim was earlier this week – I thought it was an opportune time.