2023 JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE FOR BAKING AND DESSERTS
From sweet to savory, basic breads to fancy pastry, this elegant and thoroughly modern cookbook distills centuries of European tradition and heritage into mouthwatering recipes that home bakers can create in their own kitchens.
Just like many pandemic-driven Americans, Europeans are turning on their ovens and rediscovering their roots through baking. This collection of nearly one hundred recipes is presented with elegant yet friendly flair by Laurel Kratochvila, an American-born, boulangerie-trained baker with her own Jewish bakery and bagel shop in Berlin. Each chapter is dedicated to a certain kind of baked product—breads, brioches and enriched doughs, viennoiseries and laminated pastries, tartes and biscuits—and includes foundational recipes and time-honored techniques for dough-shaping, fermentation, seasoning, and fillings. Sprinkled throughout the book are profiles introducing readers to eleven other European bakers who are turning out delicious pastries and breads that reflect the cultural heritage of their home cities of Paris, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Madrid, London, and Lisbon. Recipes such as Baltic rye bread, toasted sesame challah, elderflower maritozzi, honey and fig tropézienne, lamb and fennel sausage rolls, soft pretzels, and spicy ginger caramel shortbreads combine Old World traditions with twenty-first century flavors. Filled with luscious photography, and suitable for bakers at every level of experience, this sophisticated yet accessible guide to home baking is crammed with centuries of European history.
»I opened New European Baking expecting a collection of great recipes, but after reading it I came away with so much more. This book is a mediation on passion, soul, and terroir, as told through the stories of the artisans and friends who've inspired Laurel in her own creative journey. Buy it for the meticulous, step-by-step sourdough instructions, craveworthy croissant tutorials, and road-trip escapism; keep it for an edible lesson in pursuing your dreams, one loaf at a time.«
Biography
Trained in France, LAUREL KRATOCHVILA is an American baker specializing in Jewish breads and pastries. Brought up in New England, she is now the owner of Fine Bagels book and bagel store in Berlin, Germany. Laurel is a food consultant practising recipe development and food styling (most recently for the hit Netflix show Unorthodox), and has given talks throughout Europe about Jewish foodways and baking history.
