In 2017, Hertfordshire housewife and former teacher, Stacey Hart, flew the flag for balabustas everywhere. Since then, we’ve had to rely on our fabulous bakes for any Jewish culinary contribution.
Last season, two of the technicals required the bakers to conjure up Jewish-inspired bakes. First a chocolate babka and then a batch of rainbow bagels — which were almost entirely awful. Jews everywhere held their heads in their hands. It even caused a kerfuffle Stateside, as New York bakers reacted angrily to Prue preferring Paul’s bake to the babka she’d eaten in their city. Equally controversial was a ‘plaited loaf’ feature in an early series, which we all knew was challah, but which no one in the tent had a scooby about.
Always hoping for someone to cheer for I eagerly scan the contestants at the start of each season.
This year my Jew-dar pinged on hearing Brighton-based, Jürgen Krauss made a mean “Jewish challah bread.” Sure enough, it transpires that the gentle, German is married to Jewish Sofia, and they and son Benjamin are active members of Brighton Reform synagogue.
Jürgen has already come up trumps with a perfect Passover pavlova. Being flour free, the pav is a already favourite Pesach pud for haimish bakers. And crowning it with home-made, chocolate-coated matzah ‘pyramids’ and his own charoset was a master stroke.
Personally, I’m not sure I’d pair matzah with meringue, and the charoset was a bit off the wall. Blitzing whole oranges and dates is not a recipe I’ve ever used for my Pesach paste, but it worked a treat for judges Paul and Prue, who raved about it.
“Jurgen’s back” exclaimed Paul, after our favourite German baker’s kipper-based focaccia and milk bread baby during bread week had been controversial to say the least. I’ve kvelling for him and can’t wait to see what other bakes he pulls out of the oven this series.
