Babka

Not being Jewish

Not being in a town with a great Jewish bakery

Not paying attention to the Babka at Jewish food festivals

Honey Cake!

All I knew about Babka was

the Seinfeld episode.

What a travesty.

Even with the pages of instructions

this Babka was another turning point

in my odyssey of learning to bake bread.

This was the first time 

I equated baking bread with the same

attitude as baking say, 

a cake or cookies.

For me,

a major milestone. 

It's a fun dough to work with,

sticky but fun.

It begins to puff up into

a fluffy pillowy dough

that requires a chill

to tame the added butter.

It is then rolled out and

smeared with filling,

I chose almond.

FYI

Unopened box of 

almond paste does not have 

an indefinite shelf life

Roly poly-ed into a log

then placed 

in a Bundt pan

for the last rise.

Almond paste, Muscavado sugar and Lyle's Golden Syrup

Vanilla, ground almonds 

and cinnamon

bound together with an egg white

This Babka took an extra

half hour and still did not

rise as high as Rose said it should.

I gave up and popped it in the oven.

And then the aroma

started wafting about.

Testing the temperature

indicated it was done.

Is Babka a bread or 

is Babka a cake?

It's neither 

and it's both.

Mostly it is delicious.

~

The Baking Bible

by

Rose Levy Beranbaum