Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Recipes

Magnificent Chocolate Matzo Masterpieces

In a small shop in Roswell, Georgia, not far from Atlanta, Russian immigrant Natalya Shapiro paints matzo with stunning chocolate.

As a small child in Belaya Tserkov, in Ukraine, she used to visit her grandparents often. Her grandfather was a baker, and her grandmother baked matzo throughout the year, storing it in a special bag in the closet. Topped with a drizzle of chocolate or some homemade jam, it accompanied evening tea.

Building on her family’s pastry heritage, Shapiro and her husband, Art, started baking cakes and fondant in their Atlanta home in the evenings and on weekends. Then they decided to try chocolate, graduating to more sophisticated equipment. Their friends kept encouraging them to open a shop; that led to Chef Brulée, a chocolate shop and bakery. With her grandmother in mind, Natalya decided to try coating matzo in brightly colored chocolate, making it available for Passover.

Finally, this Pesach Natalya’s painted matzo can be ordered online for overnight shipping. She coats King David brand matzo with kosher, fair-trade Belgian chocolate (Callebaut or Felchin).

Now we are able to both decorate our table and satisfy our sweet tooth, all with just a piece of matzo.

Rabbi Deborah R. Prinz speaks about chocolate and Jews around the world. Her book, “On the Chocolate Trail: A Delicious Adventure Connecting Jews, Religions, History, Travel, Rituals and Recipes to the Magic of Cacao,” (Jewish Lights) is in its third printing. The book is used in adult study, classroom settings, book clubs and chocolate tastings. She is Co-Curator for the Temple Emanu-El Bernard Museum exhibit of “Jews on the Chocolate Trail” to be mounted in the fall of 2017. She blogs at the Huff Po, On the Chocolate Trail and elsewhere.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.