Sunday, March 20, 2016

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 
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.
~
by
Rose Levy Beranbaum







3 comments:

  1. Looks wonderful with the almond filing! And beautiful swirl!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree--it's a cake-bread. Or a bread-cake. But delicious.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Vicki, it's so delicious, yours look good too , nice write up.
    Come see mine post.

    ReplyDelete