SHANNON^ SARNAPHOTOS:^ DOUG^ SCHNEIDERPHOTOGRAPHY36 APRIL/MAY 2020 TASTEOFHOME.COM
FAMILY KITCHEN
OLORFUL SPRINKLES
SHIMMY ACROSS THE
FLOOR OF SHANNON
SARNA’S NEW JERSEY
KITCHEN, the sweet fallout
of a cupcake-baking session
with her girls, 7-year-old
Ella and 3-year-old Billie.
Shannon, a longtime reader
of Taste of Home and author
of the Modern Jewish Baker
cookbook, doesn’t mind
a few strays. She considers
the time she spends in the
kitchen with her children, including her infant
son, Jude, to be particularly precious.
That time in the kitchen is a tradition she’s
carried on from her own childhood. “I remember
baking a lot of banana bread, zucchini bread and
pudding pie with my mom, and those are very
cherished memories,” Shannon says.
When her mother passed away, Shannon was
just a teen. She began to cook for her younger
siblings, and that’s when she started thinking
about connecting to her Jewish heritage—
particularly when it came to making Jewish food.
The first recipe she tried baking on her own was
challah, the traditional braided Jewish bread.
Since then, she’s come to love the tradition
and precision that go into Jewish baking. That’s
what inspired her to write Modern Jewish Baker.
“I wanted home bakers, and those who had never
made challah or babka before, to feel empowered
and confident that they could make it at home.”
Today, variations on challah account for a
hefty portion of the Jewish cooking website The
Nosher, where Shannon is editor. She notes that
challah is not served during Passover, however,
because everything on the table must be free of
wheat and yeast.
When it comes to Passover
recipes, she says, they’re
“basically gluten-free baking.”
Although matzo meal can
be substituted for f lour in
some recipes, Shannon is
partial to making f lourless
cakes, candies and other
sweets for Passover. “And
I like to make desserts with
nut f lours or nut butters,”
she says. As with all baking,
Shannon can’t stress enough that “ingredients
matter and precision is everything.”
“The taste and quality of your bake is improved
greatly by better ingredients,” she says. “Don’t buy
cheap chocolate and don’t buy cheap f lour.”She puts that special care into her family’s most
beloved dessert, rainbow cookies. Traditionally
served in synagogues and at Jewish celebrations,
rainbow cookies are actually an Italian confection.
That’s what Shannon likes about Jewish baking and
cooking—they are inf luenced by many cultures.
“Jews are from all over the world, but there’s also
a universality,” she says. “Jewish baking looks like
so many things.” In the ethnic melting pot of New
York’s Lower East Side, Jewish cooks and bakers
have adapted dishes from Eastern European, Italian
and Irish kitchens. Those recipes were handed
down to new generations, just as her family’s
kitchen traditions are being passed along to Ella,
Billie and Jude. “My husband, Jonathan, loves to
cook, too,” Shannon says.
Shannon believes cooking and baking help kids
grow in confidence and independence, while also
drawing the family closer.
“There are a lot of demands on parents,” she says,
“but being in the kitchen—talking and baking side
by side—is a time you can slow down a little bit.”
Even if that means sweeping up a few sprinkles.