For years I have been starting my mornings early, baking at home, in restaurants or in my studio and causing the smells to spread throughout the street, so that everyone will be addicted. I run between the restaurants for which I am the pastry chef and my private kitchen, learning day after day, over and over again, how difficult this profession is, lots of hours on my feet and physical work. But just can’t give him up. I talk to my doughs, give them a positive attitude and a lot of love and know that this way they will love me back and I recommend you too.
At the age of 12, I made my first yeast cake, on my own. I couldn’t wait for my mother to get home from work and I just went into the kitchen, opened the late grandmother Esther’s binder and started baking. Mother came home, saw the cake in the oven and me sitting on the rack watching the cake rise and rise, and the smell in the house and the result made me continue to bake non-stop , until today. Little by little I became the little pastry chef of the house and of my friends, until I decided to enter the field and fulfill a big dream – to become a pastry chef, so despite my young age I started working in a pastry shop Dalal in Neve Tzedek and gain experience. In general, wherever I worked and studied I was the youngest. “The young woman” became my second name.
Photo: Gal Ben Ze’ev
I was imbued with a goal to enter the world called confectionery and in many places I wanted to work I fought to enter and not be ashamed, not even when I would repeatedly receive the answer “No, you’re a girl”. The persistence paid off. In the end I worked in the most prestigious places in Tel Aviv – mass, Sheila, Cluelys And as Dalal said – even when I became a pastry chef at the age of 21, I had to prove myself, but there were quite a few places that didn’t accept me because of my young age, and that’s why I do accept young workers who want to enter the field and learn, and make them not give up on their dream, walking hand in hand with them along the way all the way.
At the age of 21, I was already in the “Chef Games”, also there I was told “Where do you want to go?”. This time I had a concrete answer: I replied that I am here to make dreams come true. The experience in the program was not easy but challenging and educational and it is true that I failed just before – but my audition was a big wow and to this day people come to me who remember me as the young woman (this time “the young woman from the ‘Chef Games'”) with the red dress and the coffee dessert with golden popcorn.
But gold popcorn aside, I have always believed in simple recipes, recipes from the past, from grandmothers, from home. I believe that it is necessary to create a base of good recipes and to play with them and since I started teaching this is the path taken by everyone who came to learn from me. It turned out differently for each of us, but from a good foundation you will build a binder with the recipes you liked and that are successful for you and they will be regulars at your home. Always think about how you can play and change flavors/fruits/shapes of the cakes and this will make you succeed in making new things, build your own recipes and above all give your handprint in every dessert and pastry. And if you have a grandmother or a mother that you can learn from, don’t give it up. It’s a gift for life.
Photo: Gal Ben Ze’ev
These days I am working on the realization of my next dream, my baking book. The book is also a capsule of memories – I want to document and tell the story of Grandma Katie and Grandma Esther, that the world of confectionery always rests on a long-standing tradition, on handcraft, on emotion. All the recipes that will appear in the book They were brought to the home kitchen, and they are easy to operate, insanely impressive and will soon enter your regular arsenal of recipes. This way you too will create your own memory capsule, when you bake alone, with friends or with the family, and then sit in the garden and enjoy a perfect bite.
So I already told you how special my grandmother is, right? Three years ago, just before the corona virus started, I decided that I was giving myself a gift, and in honor of my grandmother’s 90th birthday, I was doing an Iraqi pastry workshop with her, a workshop that will be with her and with me in my heart for many years to come. I was privileged to learn from my grandmother how to make the pastries I love the most, but most of all I was privileged to have her teach my customers to bake. was unforgettable.
date cookies (20-30 cookies)
For the dough:
3 and 1/2 cups (500 grams) of flour
25 grams of fresh yeast or 8 grams of dry yeast
2/3 cup (160 grams) of water
1/3 cup (70 grams) canola oil
1/2 cup (100 grams) of sugar
To fill:
250 grams pitted dates
For coating:
Sesame
preparation method:
1. Mix flour and yeast in a mixer bowl with a kneading hook. Add the rest of the dough ingredients and add to the dough at medium speed. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to rise for 45 minutes.
2. Heat the dates a little in the microwave until they are soft and you can make them into equal balls. Roll 20-30 balls and keep aside.
3. Divide the dough into balls weighing 40 grams. Roll each ball into a thin circle, place a ball of dates in the center, close the circle of dough over the filling and roll back into a ball shape.
4. Dip each ball in sesame on one side.
5. Roll the coated balls (so that the sesame is facing up) into a sort of flat filled cookies, and with the help of a wooden spoon handle narrow a hole in the center of each cookie.
6. Place in an oven tray lined with baking paper, cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for 25 minutes.
7. Bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until the cookies are golden. Cool completely.