Who would’ve thought that the people behind some of the Boston areas award winning American classics, such as chocolate chip cookies and fudge brownies, would be immigrants?
Not me. Not until I walked into Rosie’s Bakery and heard the interesting story behind the store.
It all started with Judy Rosenberg, a kid who loved eating pastries. One day, she decided to make some cookies for Valentine’s Day and share them with the shops around Harvard Square.
And, guess what?
People loved them! They asked her what else she could make, and excitedly, she searched for recipes for foods that she had loved as a child. Once she got started, she found that she could just not stop baking. Judy had discovered her dream job.
As people began hearing about Rosie’s, they came from all around to get a taste of her homemade pastries. After not too long, Rosie’s Bakery was winning all kinds of awards, especially for its brownies and chocolate chip cookies. In 1980, Rosie’s was also named by Boston Magazine as “Best Cake” in its “Best of Boston” edition, calling Rosie’s cakes: “the stuff dreams are made of.”
Now, this is another foreign element comes in. Years later, Judy sold Rosie’s Bakery to a woman named Galina who herself had loved baking ever since she was a four year old kid. Back then, she would spend hours making homemade recipes with her grandmother in Ukraine.
When she moved to America from Ukraine at the age of 19, she brought with her just a hundred dollars, her personal recipes/cookbook, and her hand me down measuring spoon and measuring cup. (pictured above). So, when her recipes call for a spoonful of this and a cupful of that, these are her spoons and her cups.
After she bought the bakery from Judy, she added some recipes similar to hers to the menu, making the selections delicious and exotic, also adding Ukrainian recipes such as rugalah
Today, Rosie’s Bakery has a mix of Judy’s original, and Galina’s recipes, creating a scrumptious selection of cookies, brownies, cakes, pies, and other delicious items. My favorites were the ginger molasses , oatmeal raisin cookies, and the fudge swirl brownie (all of which were soooo soft and soooo tasty). I feel I was lucky to get to have this yummy experience and hope you will be able to enjoy Rosie’s Bakery too.