Laurel Kratochvila at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes baker and food consultant LAUREL KRATOCHVILA for a discussion of her new book New European Baking: 99 Recipes for Breads, Brioches and Pastries. She will be joined in conversation by RACHEL SUNDET—local award winning baker and owner of Mamaleh’s Delicatessen.

A Return to In-Person Events

Harvard Book Store is excited to be back to in-person programming. To ensure the safety and comfort of everyone in attendance, the following Covid-19 safety protocols will be in place at all of our Harvard Book Store events until further notice:

• Face coverings are required of all staff and attendees when inside the store. Masks must snugly cover nose and mouth.

About New European Baking

Just like many pandemic-driven Americans, Europeans are turning on their ovens and rediscovering their roots through baking.

This collection of nearly one hundred recipes is presented with elegant yet friendly flair by Laurel Kratochvila, an American-born, boulangerie-trained baker with her own Jewish bakery and bagel shop in Berlin. Each chapter is dedicated to a certain kind of baked product—breads, brioches and enriched doughs, viennoiseries and laminated pastries, tartes and biscuits—and includes foundational recipes and time-honored techniques for dough-shaping, fermentation, seasoning, and fillings.

Sprinkled throughout the book are profiles introducing readers to eleven other European bakers who are turning out delicious pastries and breads that reflect the cultural heritage of their home cities of Paris, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Madrid, London, and Lisbon. Recipes such as Baltic rye bread, toasted sesame challah, elderflower maritozzi, honey and fig tropézienne, lamb and fennel sausage rolls, soft pretzels, and spicy ginger caramel shortbreads combine Old World traditions with twenty-first century flavors.

Filled with luscious photography, and suitable for bakers at every level of experience, this sophisticated yet accessible guide to home baking is crammed with centuries of European history.

Praise for New European Baking

“I opened New European Baking expecting a collection of great recipes, but after reading it I came away with so much more. This book is a mediation on passion, soul, and terroir, as told through the stories of the artisans and friends who've inspired Laurel in her own creative journey. Buy it for the meticulous, step-by-step sourdough instructions, craveworthy croissant tutorials, and road-trip escapism; keep it for an edible lesson in pursuing your dreams, one loaf at a time.” —Adeena Sussman