My Most Favorite Dessert Company Cookbook: Delicious Pareve Baking Recipes [Hardcover]

Born in Vienna, later arriving in the U.S. as a WWII refugee from Italy, Schechter was imbued with European baking traditions and determined to reproduce the flavors of her childhood when she opened her first New York bakery in 1982. The question was: could she, as a kosher cook, concoct pareve (made without milk) Linzer Cookies, Sacher Torte, Genoise with "Buttercream" and Hamantaschen without butter, cream, milk or sour cream? Her Continental specialties as well as her all-American Brownies, Carrot Cake and Lattice-Top Apple Pie fly off the shelves at her Manhattan bakery-cafe. What are her secrets for rich-tasting, nondairy loaf cakes, layer cakes, pies and tarts, cookies and Passover specialties? After much testing, she recommends unsalted kosher margarine (which makes a luscious chocolate mousse), vanilla soy milk (for a smooth and spicy Pumpkin Pie ) and powdered coffee "creamer" (in Strawberry Tea Bread and Rugelach). Pareve bakers should be delighted with the results, and Schechter's 90-plus recipes will also please vegans and the lactose intolerant. Instructions are clear and user-friendly, except for the more complicated cakes when one must search different chapters for the components of a recipe. With her creative reworking of many old favorites, Schechter does, indeed, prove that pareve baking can be "delicious and elegant." 16-page color insert not seen by PW.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

As all its loyal fans will tell you, there is only one place to go in New York City for great pareve desserts: Doris Schechter's My Most Favorite Dessert Company. For more than twenty years, Doris has provided her customers with delectable cakes, pies, tarts, cookies, and muffins -- proving that dairy-free desserts can be delicious.

With this book, Doris shares the secrets of her renowned pareve baking, offering more than ninety recipes that can be made easily in any home kitchen. Forget the disappointing pareve cakes and cookies you may have endured in the past: these are rich, indulgent desserts worthy of even the most special celebrations. From an old-fashioned Apple Cake to a sophisticated Velvet Chocolate Cake to traditional holiday favorites (including an entire chapter on Passover baking), Doris provides recipes you'll love to bake, serve, and enjoy year after year. Illustrated with sixteen pages of lush color photos, My Most Favorite Dessert Company Cookbook will tantalize, tempt, and teach kosher bakers and sweets-lovers alike.

Doris Schechter was born in Vienna to Jewish parents. Forced to flee Austria for Italy, she and her family eventually settled in the United States. In 1982 she opened My Most Favorite Dessert Company in Great Neck, New York, and in 1986 moved the bakery to Manhattan, where it is now combined with a restaurant. Doris lives in New York City.