Jewish baking recipes please!

[PeachPumpkin]

I wasn’t brought up Jewish at all, but I have Jewish heritage and I’d like to try some Jewish recipes for baking. Any recommendations? Ideally I don’t want a recipe that measures using cups. Thank you. 😊

Hi peach 👋 are you looking for sweet or savoury recipes?
would you want to try baking challah ?

Hi @PeachPumpkin so nice to read this.
I've would recommend you search for Jamie Geller's recipes and the Jewlish website as they use measurements in cups and the recipes are very very good.

Thank you both! I was looking more so for sweet recipes, but I suppose I could try challah! I just find it a bit intimidating. It is a classic though.

@ChallaMama Thanks for the recommendation, but I’m keen to avoid cups as they never seem precise enough and I know I’ll be second guessing if I’ve done it right!

At some point I’ll try making a meal.. I’ve been told that my great great grandmother used to make a huge dish of fried fish on a Friday night.

I'm so sorry @PeachPumpkin I read your post wrong and thought you wanted cups!

Evelyn Rose - her complete cookery book is legendary and in gs and oz.

Also you can always covert cup measurement online so all recipes work. This is what I do and no problems. Tori Avey has a fantastic website too. Her personal story of how she came to cooking and Jewish food is very sweet. Her recipes always work for me and are fantastic in my opinion.

Try goggling 'Jewish Apple Cake'. Simple and delicious. My version is:

take 4 eggs and weigh in shells,
take that weight and use the same weight for : butter, caster sugar and self raising flour.
beat the butter and sugar til fluffy, add the eggs and 1 tspn vanilla extract or paste.
Fold in the flour.

Chop up 1 or 2 apples into small chunks
fold into the mix.
spoon into a 8" deep round baking pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar (optional)

bake at 160'c/170'c fan for 45mins, test, if not cooked add 8mins and check again (a skewer inserted should come out clean)

Enjoy your culinary adventure! Keep us posted with what you make.

we are coming up to the holiday of shavuout; traditional this time of year to eat dairy food on shavouot. I always make cheesecakes and chocolate cheeseballs around now. This kind of thing (except I sometimes spike some of them with vanilla vodka or cherry liqueur) https://www.kosher.com/recipe/chocolate-cheese-cake-balls-5373/ This isn't the recipe I use, but it's the same idea.
There's a classic 'kids' cheesecake a lot of kids make in school which is non bake; we called it a chocolate cheese triangle @ChallaMama do you know what I am talking about?

Babka is a very traditional baked yeasted cake - I sometimes just roll out my challah dough, and fill with a chocolate filling and twist it up, but there are recipes for that too if you want to try? kokosh is very similar. Rogelach (individual rolled up pastries) are in the same sort of vein.
Sorry, this is a cups recipe: https://www.kosher.com/recipe/best-babka-ever-with-variations/ It's american - american cup size is slightly smaller than UK size. Because it is a bread dough, it's more forgiving than cake batter if it is not quite right. Vanilla bean paste not essential - I use vanilla sugar for these kinds of recipes, or pure vanilla essence. Proper bread flour is necessary though, but doesn't need to be a high end brand, I used to use lidl's bread flour, or tesco's.
The recipe I often use personally is from the Bais Yaakov cookbook.

I have 3 evelyn rose cookbooks! 2 are super old; I took them from my Savta, and the third is the new complete international jewish cookbook, which has everything, it's brilliant! amazon.co.uk/New-Complete-International-Jewish-Cookbook/dp/186205908X

@EllaDisenchanted the one the kids make I'm not sure about sorry!. I like to use the BBC good food NY cheese cake recipe - it always comes out perfectly.

Great idea re babka. It's very easy and Jamie Geller has a straightforward recipe.

I also have that cookbook. It's so good.
Claudia Roden is another with fabulous stories about Jewish cooking worldwide.

Finally...a challah recipe! ... this is the best challah recipe and an amazing bakery if you are ever in the area! The donuts and zaatar pastries at Karma Bread are divine.

https://www.thejc.com/recipe/how-to-make-the-perfect-challah-v800ac58

Thank you both so much! That’s given me tons to go on. Food for thought. I feel spoiled for choice. I’ll definitely have a look at those books. I think I’ll try a few Internet recipes first and get a sense of it’s sensible to get a book.

I think I’ll try the apple cake first. I can do a reasonable sponge, so it seems like a safe place to start. I will post pictures! Im also thinking of trying one of the cheesecake recipes and the challah - I’ll use the challah recipe posted, thank you!

I posted instructions a long time ago on here on how to do a 6 plait (traditional way to braid a challah), I’ll see if I can find it and link. Although for Shavuot it’s traditional to do round challahs.

looking forward to seeing how you get on!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/AMA/3900350-I-am-Jewish-AMA?page=32&reply=96703415

instructions on this page. Also someone else posted their challah recipe there

do you have a breadmaker? I have a super easy challah recipe :-)

Apple cake is great and I love this honey cake recipe

I will hopefully try the apple cake this week. I’m hoping the margarine in the fridge is still in date. The honey cake looks delicious and it’s on my shortlist! I’m going to try to get my head around how to plait the challah. I will report back when I’ve made something. Thank you!

ETA: No breadmaker, unfortunately.

might be easier to watch a video of the braiding. The challah prince does one (classic 6 braid) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wDiS7SVFjm4

I just do a 3 strand braid - easy and just as delicious :)

Have actually started doing challah knot rolls most of the time and my kids bring them for lunch during the week.

My absolute, 110% favourite Jewish cookbook is Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food.

It's not just a cookbook, it's also Jewish history, full of anecdotes and community culture. It's also a very good cookbook!

Thank you for all the information and tips. I have purchased apples! I haven’t forgotten about this- it’s just been a bit busy due to half-term and other stuff that’s cropped up. I’m planning to do apple cake to start as it’s the most likely thing to be successful. I also want to attempt challah and perhaps rugelach.

Best of luck @PeachPumpkin do post your finished bake. Generations of Jewish mamas are behind you willing you on in your baking success!

This book is incredible! So much to read it's very moving too. I believe so much of our culture is passed down through food traditions.

Thank you so much @ChallaMama , that’s so kind. I am excited about it and feel bad I haven’t started yet. I’m keen to build up a repertoire and hopefully move onto savoury goods. I tried latkes once, but I baked them and they weren’t very tasty, but I put that down to me, as latkes are such a classic. Think I’ll have to wear my grandmother’s Magen David necklace while baking and try to remember her stories.

Definitely don’t bake them- the whole point is
to fry them! I fry very little but frying latkes are a must

Apple cake is in the oven. It’s been in for ages already and the middle is raw. Hopefully it’ll come out ok.

Apple cake can take ages as the apples release so much liquid.

That’s a good point, I hadn’t thought of that, thank you. The top of the cake doesn’t look like I’d hoped. I’ve out foil on top as I have a dodgy oven and this prevents the top from burning while the inside is still raw. Problem is, I don’t have the nice top of cake appearance. But I’ll dust with icing sugar, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m feeling oddly nervous. I’m actually a reasonable baker, believe it or not.

I just checked on it again. Appley water is bubbling out of the top and the inside is totally raw.

Still raw in the middle. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a disaster.