Koenig tells me that the recipes in The Dessert Table fall into three “buckets”: updated Ashkenazi favourites, more obscure heritage sweets, and recipes of her own creation inspired by much-loved Jewish flavours. She captures this scope – and a taste of the recipes within – perfectly in the book’s introduction, writing: “Some of the recipes in this book – like the classic walnut baklava and Persian rice pudding – are made very much the same way as they have been for hundreds of years. Others, like the chocolate turtle babka and orange and almond cake, offer my modern interpretations... and still others, including the almond kiss blondies and no-churn coffee Hawaii ice cream, transform flavours from the Jewish diaspora into something entirely new.”
Yogurt semolina loaf cake from The Dessert Table by Leah Koenig (Photo: copyright ©2026 by Nico Schinco)[Missing Credit]
Many of the recipes have wonderful stories attached to them, which Koenig shares throughout the book. One such dish is the yogurt semolina loaf cake, which is inspired by a cake she first tasted at a guesthouse in Nazareth, on a trip to Israel led by the legendary Jewish food writer Joan Nathan. “It has this really tender, rich crumb, and this not-too-sweet syrupy topping,” she tells me, adding with a laugh: “Maybe it could have a sexier name, but it’s one of my favourites.”
While the book includes flavours and inspiration from across the world, in the beautifully evocative and relatable opening lines of the book’s introduction, Koenig explains that her love of Jewish desserts was fostered much closer to home – at the kiddush table. “As soon as the service ended, all the children would stream from the sanctuary into the social hall, where our prize for being patient lay: a long table lined with platters of crumbly sprinkle cookies, spongy slices of honey cake and marble cake, and, rather curiously, green fondant-covered petit fours in the shape of frogs,” she writes.
Later, when I ask about the motivation of the word “joy” in the book’s title, I can’t help but think back to this opening passage when Koenig explains: “There’s the deeper question about our community needing joy at the moment, which I think is true, but I think for me it was more that desserts have been sort of vilified, and there’s been a question about what role they should play in our lives these days. And so I was really thinking, the value of desserts is joy.”
Grape spoon sweet from The Dessert Table by Leah Koenig (Photo: copyright ©2026 by Nico Schinco)[Missing Credit]
After 20 years of writing about Jewish food, I’m curious to know if Koenig discovered anything new while researching and writing this book – and am glad to hear that she did. “One dessert that I had either never heard of, or forgotten about, was a Greek bougatsa – which is a flaky filo pie that has a sort of baked custard in the middle, and it’s so delicious. It’s very Yom Kippur friendly – like, if you’re somebody who enjoys a dairy kugel on Yom Kippur breakfast, then this bougatsa would be a great addition.”
Another delicious discovery was the rather intriguing grape spoon sweet, which Koenig tells me is “basically like a compote or kind of loose preserve”. Explaining that this recipe originates from within Turkish and Greek and Balkan communities, she says: “When guests would come, they would be served these little spoon sweets along with glasses of cold water. It’s not a dessert as such, but a little sweet to revive you after a long day of travel, and that was just such a lovely concept to me.”
The Dessert Table is on sale now (Photo: copyright ©2026 by Nico Schinco)[Missing Credit]
While Koenig describes her last book, Portico, as her “most personal”, she tells me that The Dessert Table is a return to the kind of project she loves best. “It really allows me to explore and celebrate the entire world of global Jewish food, and to really bring it together as a mosaic and a tapestry that tells a larger story about what Jewish cuisine is, even more so than diving into one specific cuisine,” she says, adding mischievously: “Really, what I love to do the most, is to complicate people’s understanding of what Jewish cuisine can be.”
The Dessert Table: 100 Joyful Jewish Sweets by Leah Koenig is on sale now, W. W. Norton & Company
A plate of cakes from Leah Koenig's new book, The Dessert Table (Photo: copyright ©2026 by Nico Schinco)[Missing Credit]