Book Release: Inside the Jewish Bakery

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As many folks on the site know, long-time TFL community members Stan Ginsberg (Elagins) and Norm Berg (nbicomputers) have been working for a couple of years on a baking book. Their hard work is about to pay off as Inside the Jewish Bakery: Recipes and Memories from the Golden Age of Jewish Baking will be released on Camino Books October 15.

I was lucky enough to receive page proofs of Inside The Jewish Bakery and have to say it is tremendous. Norm's recipes collection from his years as a professional baker was already legendary on this site, but Stan and Norm together were able to put together a wonderful book that mixes in the cultural, historical, and religious contexts that make these recipes so precious.

Congratulations, Stan and Norm.

-Floyd

Inside the Jewish Bakery will be released October 15th and can be purchased on the Inside The Jewish Bakery website, on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Barnes & Noble, or at your local bookseller.





As you can imagine, Stan and Norm are extremely busy with the book release, but as time and energy permit they've offered to answer anyone's questions about the recipes or the book. Just comment below.

hi, here are your answers

  1. the sugar weight of 6.1 oz/170g is correct; "tsp" should be "cup"

  2. yes, a "block" of chocolate refers to the commercial 1oz/28g blocks sold at your local supermarket

  3. you can substitute butter for shortening in all the recipes, with the caveat that (a) you need to increase the quantity of butter by 25% of the shortening weight in order to compensate for butter's 20% water content and (b) you have to reduce the liquid called for by 20% of the butter weight.

thanks to all of you for finding these inconsistencies and errors!

Stan

with tananaBrian about a publication like this being an enormous undertaking.  And there are so many details!  But, just think how great it is to have a first edition of this wonderful book. 

Joyful

Toast

My book has arrived at last! Many thanks, Stan and Norm.

What a handsome-looking cover! And inside, a personal inscription that makes this book even more special. As I thumbed through and saw two of my pictures, as well as others I recognised from the TFL bakers who took part in the test baking, it brought back that time, which was intense and unique, and pushed my baking to places I never dreamt of going. I was quite moved to contemplated this concrete realisation of Stan and Norm's dream come true, and to feel their dream was in tiny part also my dream, and that of this great online baking community of which I am a proud and appreciative member.

You done good, guys; we done good.

Cheers!
Ross

and if you look on the Acknowledgements pages, you'll find your name and the names of every one of our testers who made it through the whole 13 weeks. We couldn't have done it without you!

Stan & Norm

Stan mentioned this article before (he had advance notice, no doubt), but I just opened my November 18 issue yesterday, and on the outside back page of the Culture and Arts section I found this terrific article by Leah Koenig ("Ingredients" column in the Culture and Arts section on the "Fast Forward" page) about the publication of Inside the Jewish Bakery.  The title, a little different from the previously noted article, is "Dough Eyed and Ready to Eat."  http://www.forward.com/articles/145900/#.TtRL3b1na2k.gmail.   The printed version has a big picture of Stan on top, with photos of egg kichel and one of a baker putting rye breads in the oven.  I've been sharing the article with everyone in sight.  How great is this!  Kudos, Stan and Norm.

Joy

I am so jazzed!  I got Inside the Jewish bakery "and " Artisan breads Everyday  under the Chirstmas tree this morning.  I test-baked for ABED but didn't have the time to volunteer for ITJB.  I have read just the first few chapters of ITJB and have to commend both Norm and Stan for their wonderful book.  I can't wait to begin to work my way through both books.  I can tell by the look of my daughter and son-in-law's eyes that I had better keep a tight grip on ITJB as he grew up in a traditional Jewish family.

As for Peter's book, what can I say.  It's truly an Artisan book for the masses, I hope it outsells BBA.

Hi all— 

i am definitely late to the party but when I missed Stan’s Rye class in LA last year (2017) I got the kindle edition of Inside the Jewish bakery (rye bread volume).  Loved the history in the book, and really wanted to make razeve broyt, inspired it’s almost purple-black color.  But I think there is an error in that recipe— the second part with the boiling asks for 510 g of boiled water (calling it 80% bakers percentage) but the whole recipe only has 505 g of flour/meal.  The “moderately stiff deep brown dough” is soup for me so figure that must not be right.  Later in the book, the next recipe (for pumpernickel) seems to hAve the same boiling stage but it has 400g boiling water listed as 80% so that must be the right weight to use in the first recipe, but in both it’s asking for 18oz if boiling water which would be like 540g, so the oz weight is wrong in both.  When are you coming back to LA, Stan?  Meanwhile is there an erratum for the kindle edition that already has the correct weights?

zack

hi Zack,

Unfortunately, there are a TON of errors in ITJB; it was a first book with a penny-wise, pound-foolish publisher who refused to invest in editors who actually edited and found errors. Also, the baker's percentages protocols were still evolving, and if I were to do the book today, it would be very different. Finally, I knew far less about rye bread back then than I do now.

None of that excuses the errors, since people expect reasonable results from books they spend money on.  That said, I've revisited the formula and made some significant revisions. The revised formula is as follows:

 

 Sponge Rye sour              10        1.2510%
 Whole rye flour           100        2.00100%
 Water           100        3.00100%
ScaldWhole rye flour           150        5.2550%
 Coarse rye meal           150        5.2550%
 Water 160F/70C           500     18.00167%
DoughWhole rye flour           400        5.25 
 Salt                9        0.30 
 Instant yeast                4        0.15 
     
 Baker's Percentages   
 Ingg% 
 TOTAL FLOUR           800100.00% 
 Whole rye flour           65081.25% 
 Coarse rye meal           15018.75% 
 Water           60075.00% 
 Salt                91.06% 
 Instant yeast                40.50% 
 TOTAL FORMULA        1,413176.56% 
 Prefermented           10012.50% 

If you're really interested in rye breads, I strongly suggest you look at my latest book, The Rye Baker. Amazon is currently selling the Kindle edition for $1.99, which is a good a bargain as you'll find anywhere.

Man that is quite a bargain, I feel like I'm getting in on the ground floor of rye.  But then again I guess this is the resurgence!