Chef Chat: Bread baker Uri Scheft.
Bread baking is Uri Scheft’s happiness. When Scheft thinks of bread, it isn’t about a recipe. It comes down to spreading joy.
Scheft grew up in Israel and Denmark, studied biology and got a degree, but realized that academia wasn’t going to bring him joy. He was in his late 20s when he realized he wanted to be a baker.
Inspired by commonalities in recipes and breads he saw in his travels, he opened Lehamim bakery in Tel Aviv in 2002. In 2014 he brought his breads to New York, opening Breads Bakery.
He’s created his own variations of challah, brioche, baguettes, burekas, pitas and cookies with worldly influences and shares them in his new cookbook, “Breaking Breads: A New World of Israeli Baking” ($35, Artisan). Detailed recipes include step-by-step directions with pictures to guide bakers. Of course, you can still order his famous chocolate babka and get it shipped to your doorstep, but he also shares the recipe in the new cookbook.
Scheft, who lives in Israel with his wife and family, is a father of three, ages 24, 22 and 1.
Q. How did you get started baking?
A. I was baking at home with my mother. This is where it started. When I was 11 and 12 years old, we lived in Denmark.
I went to school and we could choose between two extras. One was cooking and baking, the other was working with wood. I chose baking and got a small recipe book I still have to this day.
Later, after graduating from my biology studies at university, I understood I was not going to have an academic career. I wanted to actually do something that would be successful and I’d have joy from.
Traveling the world, baking just popped up one day when I was 26. After my travel in India and the Far East for a year, I took a flight directly to Denmark. That same day I called the (culinary) school. It wasn’t planned.
They said, “Studies started today, but you can come tomorrow.” I was applying for pastry school, they looked at my hands and said, “You should be a baker.”
I said OK, let’s try one day. The end of the day, I called home and said I found what I want to do.
Q. What does it mean to call yourself a modern Israeli baker?
A. For me, it is very similar in a way to what is happening in food culture, at least what I see in New York. We take a lot from many different places because it is an immigrant country. For me as half-Danish and living in Israel, and then my marriage to a Moroccan Yemenite, it is just a lot of influences, not only in food but in general.
I’m not trying in the book to define what Israeli baking is. This book is me. I’m not actually trying to define, because someone else will write a book about Israeli baking and it will be totally different because there are so many influences. …
In the New York Times they announced our Breads Bakery opening a few years ago. They looked at my other bakery in Israel, Lehamin. They saw rugelach and other things, and they defined it as a Jewish bakery.
I said no, what is a Jewish bakery? I make French croissant, Danish rye bread, Italian focaccia and challah. I studied in Denmark, Germany, a lot in France, long periods in Italy. I just put in my bakery a lot of things I really liked.
Q. What’s your advice for beginning bread bakers?
A. Basic bread is five ingredients. For beginners, I would say it doesn’t matter, even if it doesn’t turn out that good the first time. If you time it, serve it hot when it is just out of the oven, even if it is a little burned, maybe a little flat, people will have so much joy when it comes out of the oven.
Q. How do you develop recipes or put your own spin on breads?
A. I combine things from different places. All the time I’m trying to change things and make them better. For example, I went to Tunis for study and inspiration. Everybody in the old days made their own challah at home and would shape it, then the baker would only bake for them the challah they made at home.
What I really saw was they don’t braid the challah, they do beautiful bread with the hands. Ah! Challah does not have to be a braid.
Q. What is your most popular recipe? A. Definitely challah. Q. How many kinds of challah do you make?
A. The truth is it is mostly about one basic recipe. The spirit of the book is more if you read through it you see there are a lot of recipes where you can see the development. When you make the same recipe a few times, when you get to know your dough in a way, after you really get it and get your hands on it, you understand the challah can make a lot of variations.
Q. What’s your favorite use for day-old bread?
A. If you’re not going to use the whole bread, slice it and keep half of it. You have to freeze bread when it is fresh, but if it is kept out, it is always good in the toaster, as cheese toast or croutons.
Q. Is there a recipe you want to be known for?
A. Not a recipe. I didn’t want to make a catalog of my products from bread baking and the bakery. It is not a book about the bakery or me. It is about the bread, and giving people how much happiness baking can bring to a house.