Kenden Alfond, author of sev­er­al cook­books, is a psy­chother­a­pist with a strong inter­est in healthy eat­ing. In Jew­ish Sweets she brings togeth­er one hun­dred invit­ing dessert recipes from Jew­ish bak­ers, pas­try chefs, and home cooks around the world. This inter­na­tion­al col­lec­tion reflects the diver­si­ty, his­to­ry, and tra­di­tions of Jew­ish food and life in the hope that it will fos­ter a sense of com­mu­ni­ty in chal­leng­ing times.

Each recipe tells a sto­ry and is accom­pa­nied by a brief biog­ra­phy. Bas­bousa bil Zaba­di (Semoli­na Cake with Yogurt) is a tra­di­tion­al Egypt­ian cake served with tea or cof­fee. The con­trib­u­tor of this recipe was forced, with her fam­i­ly, to leave Egypt dur­ing the Suez cri­sis. A cook from Mum­bai, now set­tled in Aus­tralia, presents a flat­bread for Purim with a sur­prise fill­ing that’s a trib­ute to Queen Esther’s hid­den identity. 

Tei­glach, an Ashke­nazi treat of small pas­try balls boiled in syrup, comes from Lithua­nia via South Africa. From Libya and Tunisia comes Boulou Bread, dot­ted with oranges, nuts, seeds, and raisins, to break the Yom Kip­pur fast. Piz­za was a word orig­i­nal­ly used to describe cakes, sweets, and focac­cia and appears here as Piz­za Ebraica, a very old Roman Jew­ish recipe served at fam­i­ly simchas.

These recipes speak to the per­sis­tence of Jew­ish tra­di­tions. Many of these desserts are served at wed­dings and b’nei mitz­vah or to mark hol­i­days. As Jews have trav­eled from one place to anoth­er, they have brought their spe­cial foods with them, intro­duc­ing Ashke­naz­ic fla­vors to the Mid­dle East and Mid­dle East­ern foods to Europe and North Amer­i­ca. Suha­li­ki, a Russ­ian bis­cot­ti, has made a par­tic­u­lar­ly intrigu­ing voy­age. Today it is baked in the kosher kitchen of the Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty syn­a­gogue in Japan along with oth­er Jew­ish foods. A vis­it­ing Ukrain­ian remarked that Iza­ki-san, the synagogue’s bak­er, made chal­lah that remind­ed her of her grandmother’s kitchen in Lviv.

To pro­mote healthy eat­ing, Alfond offers help­ful sug­ges­tions for por­tion con­trol, the key to enjoy­ing sweets while main­tain­ing a well-bal­anced diet. Eat­ing sweet foods is impor­tant to our over­all phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being, as well as our plea­sure. By being mind­ful of our por­tions we can enjoy what­ev­er pleas­es us.

The book is divid­ed into dairy and pareve sec­tions, with Passover recipes for each. One note of warn­ing: The recipes are pro­duced as they were writ­ten, with the instruc­tions in what­ev­er mode of weigh­ing or mea­sur­ing was com­fort­able to the con­trib­u­tor. To con­vert the met­ric mea­sures may require a kitchen scale. 

All pro­ceeds from the sale of Jew­ish Sweets will go to Jew­ish not-for-prof­it organizations.