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Kneading Traditions
Women have carried Jewish bread-baking customs down through the ages. Artisan baker Maggie Glezer has captured their recipes and techniques
before they disappear.
By Sharon Boorstin
When Maggie Glezer, 41, was a new stay-at-home mom 17 years ago, she took up bread baking as a hobby. Little did she know that it would become a passion. She earned her certification from the American Institute of Baking, and her first book, Artisan Baking Across America: The Breads, the Bakers, the Best Recipes won a James Beard Award in 2004. In A Blessing of Bread, Jewish Bread Baking Around the World, Glezer explores Jewish home bread baking, a tradition passed down almost exclusively by women. "Along with lighting the Shabbos candles and keeping family purity, baking challah is one of the three mitzvahs mentioned in the Talmud specifically for women," she explains.
Glezer interviewed more than 40 women to come up with the anecdotes, food memories and 67 recipes that go far beyond challah in the book—and it took her a year longer than she expected. "It wasn't easy finding Jewish women who live in an Old World way, the women who still hang on to the bread-baking tradition," says the Atlanta author. "I put ads in Jewish newspapers, passed out fliers at nursing homes, but most of my interviewees came through word-of-mouth."
One of Glezer's most surprising interviews was with Sarah Ozeri, a Yemenite Jew who was visiting her daughter in Atlanta and baked chubzeh ("bread" in Judeo-Arabic) for special events at the local Persian synagogue. "For the Shabbos blessing, the Persian Jews prefer a simpler bread than challah, which contains eggs, oil and sugar," explains Glezer. "Sarah bakes a thick, pita-style bread in an electric taboon, an Israeli counter-top oven that looks sort of like a waffle maker and is dangerous because it has an exposed heating coil inside the lid. Women like Sarah are tough—they don't flinch if they get burned when they're taking out the finished bread."
 | Ba'a'be or Date Pastries, from Clemence Horesh
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(Adapted from A Blessing of Bread: Jewish Bread Baking Around the World, by Maggie Glezer)
Clemence Horesh, an Iraqi Jew, makes rich ba'a'be ("BA-ah-bay"), round, date-filled pastries decorated with a punched-flower design. When they are fresh from the oven, the filling contrasts irresistibly with the flaky semolina pastry.
For the pastry:
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup warm water
2/3 cup semolina (a.k.a. pasta flour)
1-1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
10 tablespoons or 2/3 cup melted butter or dairy-free margarine
For the filling:
1 cup pitted soft Medjool dates
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 egg, beaten
Sesame seeds to coat
Make the dough: Stir the salt into the water until it dissolves. Mix the semolina and the flour, then stir in the melted butter or oil until it is well distributed and the mixture clumps together. Add the water and mix; the dough will feel very soft at first and then firm up. If necessary, add a tablespoon or two more water to make a smooth, soft dough, or a tablespoon or two more flour to firm it up. Wrap the dough in a plastic bag and let it rest at room temperature for 3060 minutes or in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Make the filling: In a saut pan over low heat, heat the dates just until they are warm to the touch, then turn off the heat. Using your hands, knead the dates into the oil in the pan. When the filling is smooth and cohesive, roll the filling up into 16 tablespoon-sized balls with your hands, setting the balls on a plate.
Shape and bake the ba'a'be: Arrange the oven racks on the upper- and lower-third positions. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly flour a work surface and have more flour available. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper, or oil or butter them. Have ready the date balls, the beaten egg and the sesame seeds. Roll out the dough into an 18-inch-square. Using a 3- to 4-inch-diameter glass, teacup or cookie cutter, cut out circles of the dough. Put a slightly flattened date ball in the center of each and seal the dough around the ball. Pinching each pastry by the seal, dip the smooth half first in the beaten egg, then in the sesame seeds. On your work surface, with the seeded-side up, flatten each pastry into a 2-inch disk with a rolling pin. Punch a decorative pattern into the pastry with the end of a wooden spoon. Arrange the ba'a'be on the baking sheet, leaving room for expansion. Bake for about
20 minutes or until light brown. Cool thoroughly on a rack, then store them in a sealed container.
Yield: about 16 date-filled pastries
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| Za'atar Pita Bread
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(Adapted from A Blessing of Bread: Jewish Bread Baking Around the World, by Maggie Glezer)
Za'atar has an affinity with olive oil and bread, so the following pita is a natural; in fact pita bakers in Jaffa have made it a specialty. You will need a baking stone, a.k.a. a pizza stone, available at Williams-Sonoma and other kitchen-supplies stores.
1-1/2 teaspoons instant yeast (e.g., Rapid Rise, Bread Machine, Perfect Rise)
About 7-1/2 cups bread flour, divided
2-3/4 cups warm water
2-1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
About 1 cup za'atar (available in Kosher markets or from
www.zahavafoods.com)
About 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Mix the yeast slurry: In the work bowl of a mixer with the paddle attachment, or with a whisk, stir together the yeast and 3 cups of the flour, then beat in the warm water until the yeast slurry is smooth. Let it ferment uncovered for 1020 minutes, or until it begins to puff up slightly.
Mix the dough: Into the yeast slurry, beat the sugar, salt and oil. When the mixture is smooth, switch to the dough hook and slowly mix in the remaining 4-1/2 cups of flour. When the dough has absorbed the flour, increase the speed to medium and mix the dough for about 5 minutes, or until it is fairly smooth. It will remain sticky and very soft but should clean the bowl. If the dough is not sticky enough, add a tablespoon or two of water; if the dough seems too wet, add a few tablespoons of flour.
Ferment the dough: Place the dough in a large bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 24 hours, then removed from the refrigerator to finish fermenting.) Let the dough ferment until it has at least doubled in bulk, about 1-1/2 hours, depending on the temperature in your kitchen. (If refrigerated, the dough may take up to 60 minutes more to ferment.)
Round and proof the dough: On lightly floured wooden boards, baking sheets or a work surface, cut the dough into 15 medium pieces and round them. Cover the rounds with plastic wrap and let them rest for 15 minutes. Roll out the rounds into 6-inch disks and cover them with plastic wrap. Proof for about 1 hour, or until soft and puffy. Immediately after rolling out the disks, arrange a baking stone on the bottom oven rack, remove all racks above it and preheat the oven to 550°F.
Shape and bake the pita: Just before baking the pita, turn off the oven and turn on the broiler to high. The pita will bake in the stone's retained heat. Have ready a rimless cookie pan or bread peel (a baker's paddle) for transferring the pita into the oven, and a basket lined with tea towels or cloth napkins for the finished pita. Beware: za'atar oil is messy and will stain.
In a small bowl, mix the za'atar with the olive oil into a very thin oil that should sheet off a spoon (adjust its consistency with more za'atar or oil). Place a few dough disks onto the cookie sheet or peel. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the za'atar oil onto each disk and spread it to 1/2 inch of the edges. Use your fingertips to deeply dimple the surface of the dough all over, almost breaking through the bottom. Slide the pitas onto the hot stonedo not crowd. Bake the pita for about 34 minutes, or until the za'atar is sizzling and the bread is spotted brown. Do not overbake them or they will turn hard. Stack the finished pita in the basket, wrapping them with a towel.
Yield: 15 six-inch round flatbreads
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| Olive Oil Challah
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(Adapted from A Blessing of Bread: Jewish Bread Baking Around the World, by Maggie Glezer)
Serves 8
Extra-virgin olive oil imparts a beautiful pale greenish color to the crumb, a moist texture and a flaky, brittle crust to this challah that I created with a nod to Hanukkah and the miracle of the olive oil. The dough is easy to handle thanks to the low water/high oil content. Because it does not hold its shape as well as some other doughs, form it into a simple ring, round, or a single-strand braid.
1 teaspoon instant yeast (e.g., Rapid Rise, Bread Machine, Perfect Rise)
3-3/4 cups bread flour
1-1/4 cups warm water
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
Sesame seeds for sprinkling
Mix the yeast slurry: In a large bowl, whisk together the yeast and 1-1/4 cups of the flour, then whisk in the water until the yeast slurry is smooth. Let it ferment, uncovered, for 1020 minutes, or until it begins to puff up slightly.
Mix the dough: Into the puffed yeast slurry, whisk the oil and the salt. When the mixture is smooth and the salt has dissolved, stir in the remaining 2-1/2 cups of flour with your hands or a wooden spoon. When the mixture is a shaggy ball, scrape it out onto your work surface and knead it until it is well mixed, fairly smooth and soft, about 310 minutes. (Soak your mixing bowl in hot water now, to clean it and warm it for fermenting the dough.) The dough should be soft, glossy and greenish. If the dough is too firm, add a tablespoon or two of water; if it seems too wet, add a few tablespoons of flour.
Ferment the dough: Place the kneaded dough in the cleaned, warmed bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise until it has tripled in bulk, about 23 hours, depending on the temperature in your kitchen.
Shape & refrigerate the dough: Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper or foil, oiling the foil. Divide the dough in half, braid or shape the loaves as desired, position them on the sheets and cover them well with plastic wrap. I recommend refrigerating the shaped loaves for at least 8 hours or up to 24 hours.
Proof the dough: When ready to bake, remove the loaves from the refrigerator and let them proof until tripled in size, about 2-1/2 hours. Thirty minutes before baking, arrange an oven rack in the upper-third position, remove all racks above it, and preheat the oven to 425°F.
Bake the dough: When the loaves have tripled and do not push back when
gently pressed with your finger, brush them with water, then sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for 30 minutes, then switch the breads from front to back and bake for another
1020 minutes. When the loaves are
browned, remove them from the oven and cool on a rack.
Yield: 2 one-pound challahs
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A friend of a friend in Israel put Glezer in contact with Clemence Horesh, an Iraqi Jew living in Atlanta. "The first time I visited Clemence, she showed me how to bake four breads and did a belly dance for me," Glezer says. "She's a whirling dervish of a woman who worked hard to put two children through Harvard Medical School and cooks and bakes bread in her spare time."
Maritu Enyew, an Ethiopian Jew whom Glezer discovered through an article in the Atlanta Jewish Times, taught Glezer to make an Ethiopian Sabbath bread flavored with roasted fenugreek seeds. "In Ethiopia, they bake the bread wrapped in the leaves of a plant we don't have here," says Glezer, "so we used banana leaves."
Glezer spent at least three or four hours with all the women she interviewed and helped them bake. Then she tested and re-tested their recipes. "Traditional bread bakers say it's easy, but they don't measure; they shiterein [throw stuff in]. They can tell by feel whether dough needs more flour or more water, which beginners can't do," says Glezer. "I drove them crazy with my measuring cup and tape measure and especially my scale; weighing the ingredients is the best way I know to get it right."
For A Blessing of Bread, Glezer interviewed women who bake breads in the Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions, as well as those who bake breads specific to their North African and Middle Eastern homelands. One tradition she found that they share is saving the best flour for the Sabbath bread. "In Poland, Germany and the Slavic countries, they'd use rye flour for everyday bread and white wheat flour for challah," she says. "In Morocco, where they made a rustic bread, when housewives sifted their flour, they'd save the white flour for the Sabbath and use what remained for their daily bread."
Another similarity in the bread-baking traditions was the sharing of sourdough starter. "Women whose families came from Greece, Egypt and other places told me that their mothers would take a piece of dough when they were baking bread and give it to a friend, who saved it to use in her dough as starter," says Glezer.
Glezer laments that baking bread in Jewish households is a dying tradition, particularly among the Sephardic, Near Eastern and North African Jews. "Once they move to the States or Israel, they realize how easy it is to buy kosher challah," she says. "I can't tell you how many times I heard these women rationalize, saying, The challah isn't as good as my homemade pita, so the kids don't eat as much of it and have an appetite for dinner.' "
It is the observant Ashkenazi women who continue to bake challah at home, often using a customary five pounds of flour and making nine or 10 loaves at a time. "Before the fall of the Temple, families would donate a portion of their Sabbath bread to the Priests," explains Glezer. "After the fall of the Temple, the tradition became a symbolic one. Now, if you use five pounds of flour in your dough, you say a blessing, then pull off a small piece of dough and burn it."
Glezer acknowledges that baking bread is time-consuming, but she suggests shortcuts for working women who are willing to try it. "Make the dough on Thursday night and put it in the fridge," she advises. "By Friday afternoon it should be fully risen and you can pop it in the oven."
She encourages novices to bake bread so that they can discover how satisfying it can be. "You'll find that it feels good to handle the dough and to shape it," she says. "Every time I pull a loaf out of the oven and it comes out the way I wanted it to, it's thrilling." Glezer offers the example of her family friend Rebbitzen Faigie Twersky, in Milwaukee, where she grew up: "Faigie says that every time she makes challah, she thinks about everyone in her family and prays for them—and she ends up kneading her tears into the dough."
Sharon Boorstin is the author of Let Us Eat Cake: Adventures in Food and Friendship (Regan Books/Harper Collins).
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Probably my favorite part of writing this book was listening to the bakers and others talk about their lives. After a number of interviews, I noticed a pattern: Not a single visit went by without the mention of a family matriarch, invariably a grandmother. She was always a strong woman who had faced many hardships yet maintained a rocklike faith and pious observance. She spent her time cooking for her family and telling tales in her infrequent free time. She was a selfless woman who acted as the staff not only of her family, but of her community as well. And I think the frequency with which I heard of this exemplar was no coincidence. There is an old tradition in Judaism of the righteous women, attested to by the famous prayer from King Solomon's Proverbs called "A Woman of Valor," which is recited every Friday night: