The Baker Inspired by a Family Pastry Shop That Closed Before He Was Born
Shared by Dave Dreifus
Recipe Roots: New York City
Baker Dave Dreifus never had the chance to visit Stern’s Pastry Shop, the bakery his grandparents owned and operated in Brooklyn. Stern’s closed a few years before Dave was born, but he feels as if he’s been there. “[I’ve] dreamt endlessly about Stern’s,” he says. “I’ve seen it in my mind.”
While it was a classic New York bakery, it was also influenced by his grandparents’ German and Franco-German roots. Both of their families fled Europe in the late 1930s for the U.S. When his grandmother Hannah was little, her father was sent to Buchenwald, just as the concentration camp was opening, Dave believes. Relying on a distant relative in New York City, her mother obtained paperwork allowing the family to immigrate to America. With the documents in hand, she went to Buchenwald and said: “We have paperwork to leave. We’ll never come back again, we don’t want anything to do with this country,” Dave shares. Remarkably, they let him go.
Around the same time, his grandfather Armin and his parents fled Pirmasens, a German town near the French border, settling first in a German-Jewish enclave in Washington Heights and later in Brooklyn. Armin got his first job there, sweeping floors and washing dishes at a nearby bakery called Stern’s in Midwood.
During the war, he left the bakery, enlisting in the armed forces, serving as one of the Ritchie Boys, a once-secret U.S. intelligence unit made up of German and Austrian Jews who had escaped the war. Trained as interrogators at Camp Ritchie in Maryland and using their German-language skills, they interrogated Nazis and gathered curcial intelligence during the war. Armin fought in the Battle of the Bulge and, as the family recently learned through an online community, his battalion liberated Buchenwald — a story he never told Hannah.
When he returned to New York after the war, they married, and Armin returned to Stern’s. becoming a baker, working his way up through the ranks to head baker, then a co-owner, and finally the owner of both the bakery and the building that housed it. Hannah’s maiden name was Stern — though she wasn’t related to the original owner — so, when Armin had the opportunity to rename the bakery, he chose to keep it as Stern’s.
Together, they ran the bakery for years. While he baked apple strudel, babka, rugelach, and the brownies the bakery was known for, Hannah oversaw the front of the house. The bakery closed in the mid-1980s and Armin tragically passed away a week after retiring.
Two generations down the family tree, Dave didn’t set out to follow in his grandparents’ footsteps. He attended the Culinary Institute of America and spent most of his career working on the savory side of prestigious kitchens. During the pandemic, he started running a cookie company out of his apartment and, in May of 2021 he opened Best Damn Cookies, a stand in the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side. His ever-changing selection, which has included a carrot citrus rye linzer and a cookie with nori, white chocolate, and pecans, is fitting for a classically-trained chef. But, the most meaningful cookies, he says, are his seasonal rugelach, which nod directly to his grandparents’ bakery.
Having never been able to visit it — but, for in his mind — Dave says: “I feel this burning desire to represent my family.”
Rugelach
Makes: 64 cookies
Total Time: 4 hours inactive + 45 minutes active
Ingredients
For the dough:
2 cups (4 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 cups cream cheese, room temperature
3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
For the filling:
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 cup walnuts, roasted and finely chopped
1 cup golden raisins, coarsely chopped
For the egg wash:
1 egg, beaten
Preparation
Make the dough: mix the butter and sugar on medium speed in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until the mixture is fluffy and light in consistency. Add the cream cheese and mix until combined. Add the flour and salt while the mixer is on low speed and mix until just incorporated.
Separate the dough into 4 balls and wrap each piece in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for 4 hours.
Prepare the filling: place the sugar, cinnamon, walnuts and raisins into a bowl and mix well until combined into a smooth spread.
Shape the rugelach: once the dough has rested, transfer 1 piece of dough onto a floured surface. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a ¼ inch thick circle. Evenly place ¼ of the filling on top of the dough. Gently press the filling into the dough with a rolling pin. Use a pizza cutter or a sharp knife to cut the circle of dough into 16 equal triangular pieces. Starting at the wide end, tightly roll each slice toward the center of the circle to create the spiral rugelach shape. Place the rugelach onto a parchment lined baking tray leaving a 1 inch space between each cookie. Repeat shaping the rest of the rugelach from the remaining 3 pieces of dough.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Brush the surface of the rugelach with egg wash and chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
Bake the rugelach for 17 minutes until golden brown.
Cool the rugelach for 15 minutes and serve.
Brownies
Makes: 80 brownies
Total Time: 1 hour
Ingredients
2 ⅔ cups granulated sugar
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoon sea salt
4 large eggs, at room tempurature
1 cup vegetable oil
¼ cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups walnuts, roasted and roughly chopped
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a 12 x 18 x 1-inch baking sheet with cooking spray and parchment paper on top.
Combine the flour, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Whisk the eggs, oil, water and vanilla in a large bowl.
Add the flour mixture into the bowl with the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Add the walnuts and mix until just incorporated.
Spread the batter evenly into the prepared baking sheet and bake for 30-35 minutes until a cake tester comes out with some crumbs attached. The brownie is fudgy, so the tester should not come out clean.
Cool brownies to room temperature.
Melt the chocolate: Prepare a double boiler by filling a small pot with 2 inches of water. Put the pot over medium-low heat and bring the water to a gentle simmer. Place a small bowl on top of the pot. Place the chocolate chips and oil into the bowl. Whisk the chocolate constantly until it is melted, smooth and has a glossy texture.
Garnish the brownies: working quickly, invert the brownies onto a large cutting board, or over a wire rack a baking tray. Pour half of the melted chocolate over the brownies and use a spatula to spread the chocolate evenly over the top surface of the brownies. Transfer the brownies to a refrigerator for 10 minutes until the melted chocolate has hardened. Place another tray or cutting board on top of the brownies and invert the brownies to reveal the bottom side of the brownies on top. Pour the remaining chocolate on top of the brownies and spread the chocolate evenly. Transfer the brownies into the refrigerator for 10 minutes until the chocolate has set.
Cut the brownies: dip a long sharp knife into warm water and then dry the knife with a towel. Cut the brownies into even 1 inch squares.
Serve at room temperature.
Chef’s note: You can also serve the brownies on their own without finishing them with the top and bottom layers of melted chocolate.
