Light Jewish Holiday Desserts

When most people think of Jewish desserts, the same old rugelach, babka, and stale macaroons come to mind. Author Penny Eisenberg, in her new book, Light Jewish Holiday Desserts, proves that Jewish baking has so much more to offer, including cookies, Charlottes, turnovers, loaf cakes, layer cakes, Bundt cakes, Napoleons, and tarts. Most Jewish desserts are also laden with fat, but Penny shows you, with her absolutely delicious recipes, how to cut the fat by as much as 75 percent in some caseswithout sacrificing any of the taste.

Jewish holidays are steeped in culture and tradition, so the chapters are organized by holiday and explain why certain foods and recipes are significant. Some recipes, though, are just fun, like the Chocolate Nut Roulade that can be shaped to look like a Torah for Simkat Torah. For Passover (Pesach), very strict guidelines must be followed, like no consumption of wheat flour, so Penny offers a Fresh Strawberry Torte with a crust made from ground matzoh.

Many of these recipes are so delicious, home cooks will want to prepare them year round. But come high holidays, these recipes are sure to impress family and friends.

Jewish cooking is tied to dishes reflecting where families came from and to ingredients with symbolic meanings. For Penny Wantuck Eisenberg, these links are more essential than specific recipes. It is the significance of honey on Rosh Hashanah that matters, not whether the cake is studded with nuts or made using applesauce in place of oil to cut down on fat. From this viewpoint, in Light Jewish Desserts, Eisenberg offers alluring desserts for every conceivable occasion, from the High Holidays to Tu b'Shevat, a minor holiday celebrating trees and their fruits, and for weekly Shabbat dinner.

There are recipes for less common treats, like Tayglach, crunchy dough balls bound together with gingery honey syrup, and Bimuelos, the yeasted doughnuts fried in oil enjoyed by Jews of Spanish heritage at Hanukkah. There are also very American sweets, from Maple Baked Apples to flaming Bananas Foster, the New Orleans creation symbolically suited to Hanukkah. If you think low-fat desserts are unexciting, the quality of Eisenberg's Chocolate Baklava; buttery Hamantashen, triangles filled with sweet poppy seeds or thick prune purée; and her spectacularly showy, creamy Lemon Charlotte will dispel all doubts. In fact, serve anyone the wonderful Rum Raisin Cheesecake Squares, Sherry-Soaked Mixed Fruit Trifle, and nutty, raspberry-filled Chocolate Sandwich Cookies and be prepared to hand out the recipes.

Hesitant bakers will appreciate the careful guidance Eisbenberg provides for choosing and using ingredients. Kosher cooks will find the recommendations for certified ingredients most helpful. --Dana Jacobi