Between Thanksgiving and Christmas recipes shuttle around the Vintage Kitchen like a snowstorm. I know the holidays are approaching when I start receiving messages from home cooks on the search for something particular. Most often, people are looking for recipes. For family favorites that have been lost or misplaced, recalled but not written down, remembered but also forgotten. Sometimes too, people write in because they are in the mood for an experiment and want to try to recreate something – a dish or a dessert that they knew from their past. Or they are looking for a theme recommendation – a tropical cocktail for their tiki party or an authentic eggnog recipe for a holiday breakfast. I love all these inquiries and the conversations that follow. Laced with stories and snapshots of family and of life and of love ignited in the heart of the house, for me here in the land of the Vintage Kitchen, communicating with all these culinary aficionados, is the joy of the season and the joy of cooking all rolled into one.
On more than one occasion these inquiries have led to stories about cookbooks misplaced, recipes accidentally thrown away or a list of ingredients and instructions just mysteriously disappeared like a sock that never returns from the dryer. They were there one holiday and gone the next.
Sometimes people write in with an urgency bordering on panic… I’ve headed home for the holidays and forgotten my cookbook. Or they contain stories of tragedy… my boat capsized and I lost my favorite recipes to the sea. Sometimes they contain stories of silly blunders… like the brother who accidentally ground up (in the garbage disposal) his sister’s prized bread recipe from the 1970s. And sometimes, they contain notes of longing. Of people wanting to rekindle a memory of a certain place or a person. But whatever prompts them to reach out to the Vintage Kitchen, everyone always signs off on their correspondence with these words… I hope you can help.
Most of the time I’m happy to say, we have been pretty lucky in finding just the right recipe that was needed. The holiday traveler who forgot her cookbook received a photo on Thanksgiving Day of the vintage chocolate pie recipe she needed. The capsized boater found a replacement cookbook in the shop. The brother who garbage disposal-ed his sister’s bread recipe was emailed a copy so that he’d have a permanent backup should he ever encounter another mishap in the future. These are small but big victories in the ultimate goal of the Vintage Kitchen, which is to build a community of modern-day cooks who have stories to share about heirloom kitchen items, traditional foods and special memories. That’s the stuff we like to celebrate around here. As Paul Child was fond of saying about his beloved Julia, that is the butter to our bread.
But the latest inquiry into the Kitchen has been more of a challenge. I’ve searched for a solution online for days. I’ve searched through all my cookbooks, all my recipes, all my options. In non-pandemic times, I’d have a beautifully large and expansive library to visit and stacks of books to scour through in order to find what Laura seeks, but our library has been closed to researchers for most of the year, so I’m putting her request out here on the blog in hopes that you can help.
Laura writes…
Today I need help finding a recipe that my 83 year old mother said she saw in a magazine (late 1950’s – early 1960’s ?). Ladies Home Journal or one of them at that time. The recipe was for a type of date and nut bar, that had a liquid like consistency that you put into a 9 x 13 pan, then cut into small rectangular bars, roll in table sugar, frost with white frosting, then zig zag some green gel on top. They were called “Date Accordions.” I have searched everywhere and cannot find anything close. We have been making these for years and last year my brother accidentally thru out her copy of the recipe. She is heartbroken!
A challenge indeed! The closest recipe I could find to Laura’s request was this one…
Slice ‘N Serve Cookies, which appeared in Pillsbury’s Grand National Prize-Winning Recipes booklet published in 1954, contain a date and nut filling, a rectangular baking dish, a sprinkling of powdered sugar, and a frosted top.
Clearly, this isn’t the right one just based on its jelly roll presentation alone, but it was the only one in my vintage collection that made mention of frosting on top of a date bar filling.
Incidentally, date bar cookies are no stranger to home bakers. Thought to have originated in Canada, they have made a regular appearance in cookbooks since the 1930s. Almost all recipes I found in my search presented them in bar fashion – a testament to their delicious simplicity. I can imagine that by the time the 1950s/1960s era rolled around, when home bakers were really experimenting with unique visual presentation, that Laura’s mom’s recipe came into its heydey. The use of colored gels and a zig-zag design definitely speak of creative trends that bloomed during that era.
So here is where we need your help. If anyone knows of this particular date bar that Laura speaks of, it would be wonderful to surprise her mom, Betty, with the recipe for the holidays. If you have a vintage cookbook or recipe collection, I’d so appreciate it if you could take a minute and flip through your sources to see if a recipe for Date Accordions pops up. How wonderful would it be to bring some holiday cheer to Laura and her 83-year-old cookie loving mom this Christmas?!
I understand that some readers are hesitant about commenting publicly, so I’ve included a private and secure contact form below. If you do run across the recipe, please submit it to the Vintage Kitchen using this form, and don’t forget to include the source in which you found it. I’d also greatly appreciate it if you could forward this post to any other bakers you know who might be able to help us track down this vintage treat.
Thank you in advance for your help! Cheers to a successful recipe search. Hope your holiday season has been full of all things sweet and delicious.
In 1986, there was a recipe. In 1956, there was a woman related to the recipe. In 1886, there was a statue related to the woman who was related to the recipe. In 1870, there was a model related to the statue who was related to the woman and the recipe. In 1865, there was a sculptor who was related to the model who was related to the statue who was related to the woman who was related to the recipe. And so begins the story of Week 18 in the International Vintage Recipe Tour 2020. Herzlich Willkommen! Welcome to Germany!
This week there is a little cooking surprise. In today’s post, we are diverting slightly from the original Tour plan and preparing a recipe, not from the New York Times International Cook Book, which we have been following since January, but from another vintage kitchen book altogether. This guest cookbook, Celebrity Desserts, was published in 1986 for a very particular reason and hails from the great state of New York just like our treasured International Tour cookbook. It also happens to fall right in line with this week’s featured destination of Germany and the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.
All that being said we are off on quite a fun adventure today! It is a journey that involves not only German history but also French and American history too. It involves family cooking, patriotic holidays, and international icons of hope, opportunity, and hospitality -three things my family and I like to celebrate on the 4th of July. And then there’s the actual recipe itself. One that is luxurious without being fussy, a cool treat in hot weather, and so popular around the world that almost every country on the planet has their own particular version of it.
Initially, this trip to Germany via the kitchen was going to fill Week 18’s post with sights and stories of Sauerbraten, an heirloom beef recipe that takes three days to prepare. Excited to explore a very traditional method of making a famous German food, I hinted at things to come at the end of the Paris post. Unfortunately, I ran into some roadblocks.
In our unpredictable time of pandemic cooking, it seems that sourcing a grass-fed beef bottom roast that cost anything less than $50.00 and that was anything under 5lbs in size turned out to be a feat of great impossibilities. Since the recipe only called for 3lbs of beef, both the size and the price suggested that maybe this lovely, long cooking project of authentic, homemade Sauerbraten might just be a bit too much to tackle at the moment. In an effort to remain flexible these days and simply go with the flow of what is available at the grocery and the market, the heirloom Sauerbraten will be rain checked for a later date. Hopefully, we can revisit this recipe again at some point further on in the year. By that time (fingers crossed) beef may be more plentiful and a bit more economical.
In the meantime, Celebrity Desserts called from the cookbook shelf. Saving the day and the country fare by offering a wonderfully delicious creation of German heritage, the dessert we are making today, thanks to our guest cookbook, comes along with its own very unique history. One that embraces German, Italian, French, and American ancestry as well as celebrates a special lady we all know and love. I’m so pleased to present our featured German dessert this week, Bavarian Cheesecake.
Cheesecake is a dessert uniquely prepared in a variety of ways depending on what part of the globe you call home. It is one of the few cakes that can be served baked or unbaked. It can be frozen, refrigerated, or served at room temperature. It can be made entirely of ricotta cheese or entirely of cream cheese. It can be slathered in sauce, dolloped with fruit, drizzled with chocolate, or dotted with nuts. It can be stuffed with spices, herbs, vegetables, or just about anything under the sun. And it runs the gamut as far as taste from sweet to savory to something in between. With such an opportunity for culinary creativity, there’s no shortage of recipes when it comes to cheesecake. In just under .6 seconds Google will deliver over 215,000,000 cheesecake-related results. Narrow it down by specific ingredient and the field gets smaller but still contains hundreds of thousands of options. But the recipe we are making today stands out from all these others. This one has a very unique lineage that sets it apart from all the other cheesecakes and all the other variations.
As the cookbook title denotes, it involves a celebrity. But not one that you might suspect. This famous figure has never had her own cooking show, nor written a book, nor sang a song. She’s not the ruler of a country or a corporation (though her values would certainly be welcomed!). She didn’t invent a cure for a disease nor end world hunger nor paint a masterpiece. She wasn’t a dancer or a designer or a technology wizard. But she has been featured in her share of movies and she has been the subject of photographers for decades. In order to get to the heart of this mystery woman’s famous roots, let’s begin at the ending, by tracing the recipe backwards.
It all starts with this face…
Do you recognize her? Most likely, probably not. She’s a pretty obscure reference in regards to her famous connection. But maybe the following info will help spark your curiosity or at least ignite the musings of your mind. Her name is Dorothy. This photo of Dorothy was taken in the 1980s, part of a follow-up story from the 1950s when she had first become the topic of newspaper headlines. At the time this photo was taken, Dorothy lived in Boise, Idaho but the event that made her newsworthy in the 1950s revolved around something that happened in New York City. Any guesses as to who she might be? If not, here’s another clue…
This is Charlotte. She is related to Dorothy. Can you see any resemblance? Charlotte was born in 1801 in the Alsace region of northern France. She married into a French family with the last name of Bartholdi. Charlotte had a son named Frederic who became an artist. This is Frederic…
Frederic dreamed of designing an enormous statue. He wanted to build it in France, but display it in America. The statue was going to require a lot of money to build, so he came to the United States in the 1860s ready to talk up his idea and gather some investors. As it turns out, Frederic’s concept sounded an awful lot like another American statue that was already in the works and slated for display in Plymouth, Massachusetts. That statue would eventually be called the National Monument to the Forefathers and looked like this…
Undeterred by this similarity, Frederic went back home to France and carried on with his own statue anyway. He raised money in his own country with the help of his mother and the generosity of local French citizens including school children. Eventually, Frederic’s dream was realized and his statue came to fruition. Off on a boat, it went to America. This is what he created…
Now back to Dorothy and Charlotte. Charlotte, Frederic’s mother, was the model for the face of the Statue of Liberty. Dorothy is Charlotte’s great-great-granddaughter.
When Dorothy was photographed in New York Harbor in the 1950s in front of the Statue of Liberty, everyone remarked on their striking similarities…
Dorothy Franks photographed in 1956 with the Statue. The inset photo was taken in 1984. Images courtesy of the Daily News.
Dorothy was related to Charlotte both via direct lineage and also by marriage, as she married her second cousin who was also related to Charlotte by blood. Today’s recipe for Bavarian Cheesecake comes from Dorothy’s kitchen.
The recipe was submitted for inclusion in the Celebrity Desserts Cookbook in 1986 by Dorothy’s granddaughter Linda, who lived in Washington state (oddly enough, in the same small town where my mom grew up). The cookbook was compiled by the Albany NY Council of the Telephone Pioneers of America, a social service organization founded in 1911 that was inspired by Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone. The Pioneers produced this cookbook as a fundraiser campaign to raise money for much-needed repairs to the Statue of Liberty. The Council collected favorite recipes from a variety of kitchens all across the country including famous ones (a former First Lady, well-known figures in the performing arts, iconic hospitality venues, etc) as well as regular home cooks, Pioneer members, and telephone industry employees who had culinary crowd-pleasers to share. Undoubtedly Linda’s recipe and the provenance from which it came must have been the icing on the cake (no pun intended!) when it came to the whole cookbook. With just five degrees of separation from Linda’s kitchen in Bothell, WA to the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, this cheesecake recipe instantly added a whole new dynamic element to the American food scene and to celebratory Fourth of July fare.
The lineage of this recipe doesn’t stop with the ladies though, nor the French nationality. It’s called Bavarian Cheesecake because it hails from Bavaria, the state located inside Germany that is known for its fairy tale castles, picturesque scenery, and a handful of typically traditional German foods including beer and sausages.
Charlotte’s family were German protestants in Alsace and Dorothy’s grandfather was born in Italy. So the Bartholdis themselves were a multicultural bunch, just like the immigrants who would come to meet Lady Liberty in New York. Eventually, Dorothy’s grandfather left Italy and immigrated to America in the late 1890s. When he floated in on the steel grey waves of water in New York Harbor, he passed under the coppery gaze of his grandmother Charlotte. What a surreal experience that must have been. In a Daily News interview published in the 1980s, Charlotte said the family was very proud of their connection to Lady Liberty and that her dad, when she was a little girl would tell stories about Charlotte and Frederic’s connection to the statue.
Dedication day !o The Statue of Liberty as photographed on October 28, 1886. Image courtesy of nps.org
Alongside Dorothy’s Italian grandfather, came boatloads of German immigrants. Of the 12 million people that came through Ellis Island from the 1890s – the 1950s, 1/12 of them were German. Because of that large influx from The Land of Poets and Thinkers (that is Germany’s nickname!), one in every four Americans today is connected via German ancestry.
I always think it is fascinating to learn about other people’s immigration stories. It’s so interesting to hear about the situations that brought them to America and to hear about what they encountered when they arrived, and where their dreams and aspirations took them. In Dorothy’s case, her Bartholdi ancestors immigrated to the U.S. to work in the gold mines in Colorado and to set up shop as stone masons and funerary art designers. In a nutshell, that’s the story of how the Bartholdi family came to America. And how they made a new life for themselves, and made a family, and then made Dorothy and then Linda. And of course all that time they made the cheesecake.
If I could take poetic license with this recipe, I’d like to rename it Bartholdi’s Bavarian Cheesecake, so that it never lost the lineage of the ladies and their connection to Liberty. Like the nervous anticipation of first-time immigrants to America, this was my first time ever making cheesecake. I must admit I was a little nervous. I had always thought that cheesecake was a very difficult thing to make – something that took a long time and a lot of effort. Maybe some cheesecake versions are that way, but I’m happy to say that this recipe couldn’t have been easier. It did take a little bit of time – between the chilling of the crust and the two different oven bakes plus the cooling and the overnight rest in the fridge, but certainly, it wasn’t a three-day affair like the Sauerbraten would have been, and it wasn’t expensive to make.
Chalk it all up to the fact that it feeds a crowd, looks lovely on a plate, and lasts in the fridge for days and days and days, I think this Bavarian Cheesecake might just be the new favorite of the International Vintage Recipe Tour so far. And that is really saying something. Australia’s Queen Mother’s Cake from Week 2 of the Tour is still receiving accolades by blog readers and eaters all these months later. So I’m especially excited to hear what you think of this latest addition to our culinary book of adventures. When we get to the end of the year and the end of the Tour, it will be fun to vote on the most favorite food made along the way. But for now, we have Bavaria and baking to get to…
Bartholdi’s Bavarian Cheesecake
Makes one 8″ inch cake or 12 Servings
For the crust:
2 cups finely crushed vanilla wafer crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup butter
For the filling:
1 1/2 lbs cream cheese (or three 8oz. packages), softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
For the top layer:
2 cups sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
For the crust: Combine first five ingredients (wafers, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter) in a bowl. With a pastry blender, cut butter until thoroughly blended until it resembles course crumbs.
Press mixture firmly and evenly against bottom and sides of a lightly greased 8-inch spring form pan. (Note: I used an 8 1/2 inch pan and that worked totally fine too.)
Refrigerate 30 minutes.
For the filling: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream cheese and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Thoroughly blend in the lemon juice, lemon rind, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Pour into chilled crumb crust.
Bake for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool at room temperature for 30 minutes. (Note: The cake will brown a little on the edges, as seen in the photos below, and may even crack a little bit on top. All that is totally fine.)
For the top layer:Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Blend together the sour cream, sugar and vanilla. Carefully spread sour cream mixture over cooled cheese filling.
Bake in oven for 10 minutes. Cool.
Then refrigerate overnight before serving.
Once you’ve refrigerated the cheesecake overnight, the top layer will become firm. This makes it a lovely platform for decorating in all sorts of ways. Since this is a patriotic dessert, you might consider adding blueberries, strawberries, or raspberries to the top. Or perhaps some lemon rind twists or fresh herbs. I decorated mine very simply with a sprig of mint and a flower (a petal each for Dorothy, for Charlotte and for Lady Liberty!). I wanted to see how it tasted unadorned, without any other ingredients changing the flavor composition.
As it turns out, it tasted like a dream! I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a really dense cheesecake or if it was going to be more light and airy, but when I cut the first slice, the answer revealed itself…
The sour cream top layer had a taste and consistency exactly like the filling of cheese danish pastries. Sweet with a subtle creamy tang. The cream cheese layer had a consistency like very thick whip cream – pillowy but substantial without being hefty.
The crust held everything together so beautifully that each slice cut perfectly smooth and never fell apart when transferred to the individual serving plates.
What a joy this dessert turned out to be. Subtle and smooth, with hints of vanilla and lemon, it is a really lovely and really delicious dessert for summer. Especially if served cold straight from the fridge. An elegant alternative if you are tired of traditional Fourth of July flag cake, berry pies or fruit parfaits this dessert can be doled out in large slices or small and travels well. It also doesn’t mind hanging out in the fridge for hours while you party the day away.
Unlike a couple previous recipes from the Tour, there is absolutely nothing I would do to alter this recipe. I wouldn’t add anything, decorate it any differently or change the flavor components in any way. It is a true classic in all the best ways and absolutely perfect as is. Just like Lady Liberty herself:)
Cheers to Linda and Dorothy and Charlotte for providing a recipe with a really long family pedigree. And to Frederic for dreaming up a Statue that welcomed the world.
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” – A portion of the poem, The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus published in 1903 on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty.
The lovely lady Liberty. Image credit: Juan Mayobre
The Statue of Liberty has been a sign of hope, potential and opportunity ever since her dedication on October 28, 1886. Except for the bald eagle, and the American flag she’s the most iconic symbol of our country that stands for everything we aspired to achieve as a nation. She’s artistic (thanks to Frederic), poetic (thanks to Emma Lazarus), strong (thanks to her copper cladding) and welcoming (thanks to Ellis Island). This has been one of the toughest years in American history to date, but I hope at the end of the day we can remember and focus on the qualities that Lady Liberty stands for. That we can shelter and accept and care for, with equal regard, all that come ashore.
Join me next time as our culinary adventures take us to Greece via the kitchen for Week 19 of the International Vintage Recipe Tour 2020!
UPDATE FROM OUR READERS!
If you find yourself without a springform pan for the cheesecake, rest assured, there are a couple of other pieces of dishware you can use as well, as noted by two of our readers…
Marianne in Seattle used a deep-dish pie pan, and served the cheesecake right from the pan. A beauty in all directions!
“It was really good. We all liked it!” Marianne also substituted lemon wafer cookies from Trader Joe’s in place of the vanilla wafers. “The lemon cookies make a nice crust,” she said.
Marilyn in Arizona used a 9″ inch tart pan and it turned out beautifully. She shared the following… “Going to create a fun game (questions and answers) to play with the blog post. Better than sitting around discussing the virus… you saved the day Katherine!” How nice!
If you discover any helpful hints after making this recipe or would like to share a photo of your decorated dessert, please comment below. A big thank you to Marianne and Marilyn for their helpful tips!
Once upon a time, there was a woman named Julianna. She was born in Poland in the mid-1800s but immigrated to upstate New York around 1900. There, she married a man named Marcin, and had a baby named Martha. Occasionally Julianna, Marcin and the baby would travel to Chicago to visit with relatives. It was there in the Windy City, in a busy house, that Julianna met a little boy named Allen.
The first time Allen met Julianna he was scared to death of her. To him, Julianna seemed very old and very gruff. But Julianna, who was well-intentioned at heart, just settled in her old Polish ways, possessed a special skill. A skill so special that it could charm anyone, even a scared little boy named Allen.
Juliana’s special talent was baking and her most charming confection was a twisted bread called babka. Everyone in the busy house in the Windy City loved Julianna’s babka. The best in all the land, boasted her proud husband Marcin, who had a belly as round as Santa’s. Everyone agreed. Even the little boy named Allen, for as soon as he took his first bite of the cinnamon-flavored treat he watched all his fears of this old woman fly right out of his head. It tastes like Christmas, he proclaimed! From that point forward, Julianna no longer seemed quite so scary. She returned, again and again, to visit and quickly became little Allen’s most anticipated house guest. As long as she brought the babka, that is:)
That’s a true story from the family archives. Julianna was the second wife of my great, great grandfather, Marcin who hailed from the pretty pastel city of Poznan, Poland in the 1800s. The little boy named Allen was my dad who was born in Chicago in the 1940s.
Dad playing with a batch of kittens circa 1946
This information all came courtesy of a notebook of memories my dad filled out about a decade ago. Somehow this information about the famous babka got overlooked in the curiosity department and I never got the chance to ask my dad more about Julianna, Marcin, and the famous yet mysterious family bread. A few days after my dad died, I came across the notebook of memories again and was reintroduced to the story of the babka.
Even though Marcin and Julianna shared 10 kids between them, there is no known recipe that’s been passed down through the family. Marcin’s daughter Jozefa, (my great-grandmother) died from burns sustained in a kitchen fire when she was just 37, leaving eight children behind. That terrible family tragedy left little opportunity for conversation about lineage, ancestors, and recollections when it came to Marcin and Julianna. No one wanted to dredge up the sad circumstances surrounding Jozefa’s death in order to understand the family that came before her. So a silence fell on that side of history. For a long, long time distant relatives became just a blur of hazy facts and faces. I’m on a mission now though to learn more about my great-great grandparents and about that beautiful pastel city where they came from…
Poznan, Poland
It will be a tricky endeavor since I’m dealing with foreign languages and far-off places, but they deserve the effort and it will be fun to see what gets discovered. In the meantime, this one little snippet of a food remembrance from my dad is a cherished link to knowing more about the lives of family members who lived over a century ago.
I don’t have any pictures of Julianna or Marcin yet but I do have a few photos of Jozefa, like this one taken on her wedding day in 1902. Sixteen years later she would die from the fire.
Because I’d never seen, or even heard about babka before it was referenced in the notebook, a new baking adventure was definitely in order. I scoured my vintage cookbooks but found absolutely no mention of it. Luckily, a great recipe was discovered online and the babka came into being in October. Two weeks ago, I posted it on Instagram and shared the story about Julianna.
It turned out to be a really fun and interesting baking project. If you are as unfamiliar with babka as I was, it is one of those cinnamon-based desserts that is like a little slice of heaven for the season. Buttery, warm and full of aromatic spice, it tastes like a cross between a cinnamon role and a coffee cake. Fittingly, (for this story anyway!) the word babka means grandmother in Polish and is a traditional heritage food of both Poland and the Ukraine. Historians suspect that it may date all the way back to the 16th century.
Babka comes in two classic variations – chocolate and cinnamon – and can be augmented with a variety of toppings including streusel, nuts, raisins, spices, and dried fruit. Usually it comes in two shapes as well – either round or loaf style. I chose to make the cinnamon version and baked it both ways – in loaves and rounds. The round version turned out to be a little fancier looking but the loaves are a bit easier to slice, so it comes down to your preference. Either way, it’s a winner of a recipe that tastes great at all times of the day, equally enjoyable at breakfast, during a mid-day snack or a late-night nibble.
The key to an ultra-flavorful babka lies in the freshness of the cinnamon. So if you can, try to find a spice shop in your neck of the woods that offers it freshly ground which would be most ideal. Luckily, as if Julianna was supporting my endeavor, a lovely new spice shop just opened up in my city, so I used Supreme Saigon Cinnamon in my recipe. If you don’t have a good spice shop in your area, no worries, you can always order some online or buy a brand new container from your grocery so that you can experience the full bouquet of flavor.
New spice shop in the city!
Making babka from scratch is a three-step process, but don’t let that intimidate you, as this is a very easy dessert to make. The only downside to homemade babka is the amount of time (about six hours) it takes to make from start to finish. That’s because it is a yeast bread and requires time to rise twice. It is well worth the wait though. It also freezes well, so if you were feeling extra ambitious you could double or triple the recipe and stack the babka up in the freezer for homemade goodness all winter long!
In a small bowl, combine the yeast, 1/2 tsp sugar and the lukewarm water. Stir to combine and then set aside for about 10 minutes so that the yeast can foam.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, 1/3 cup sugar and vanilla, mixing until everything is blended together. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan, scald the milk and then remove the pan from the heat and let it rest for 1 minute.
Using a hand mixer, combine the water/yeast mixture, the milk, and the melted butter to the flour mixture and blend to incorporate. Then mix in the eggs, one at a time.
Continue mixing on a low to medium speed for 7 full minutes until the dough is shiny, elastic, and smooth.
Place dough in a greased bowl and cover with a warm damp towel. Allow to rise for 1 to 2 hours.
While the dough is rising make the simple syrup by combining the water, sugar, and vanilla in a small saucepan. Bring to a low boil until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
Next, make the filling by combining all ingredients in a medium bowl and mixing thoroughly. Set aside.
When the dough has risen, cut it into two equal halves. Roll out one half on a lightly floured surface until it’s about 1/4″ inch thick. Try to roll the dough in as rectangular a shape as possible.
With a sharp knife trim the rounder edges of the dough so that they form straight lines, which makes the babka braids look more tidy down the road.
Next spread half of the filling evenly all over the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch rim around the edge. Ideal tools for this are a frosting knife, a spatula, the back of a spoon or even your fingers.
Then starting at the bottom edge, tightly roll up the dough (jelly roll style) to the very top edge.
Once your dough is all rolled up and resembles a log shape, trim each end with a sharp knife and then cut the log length-wise down the middle to expose the filling inside.
Now that you have two halves of one log, braid the two halves together, alternating one section on top of the other so that it looks like this…
Place the braid in a greased springform cake pan.
Repeat the above steps with the other half of the dough. And then curl the second braid inside the first braid and smoosh the two braids together lightly (like you are squeezing a basketball between your hands) so that it creates some space between the sides of the pan and the dough.
Finally, drape a moist kitchen towel over the pan and set aside to rise for 30 more minutes.
While the dough is rising again, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Bake the babka in the oven for 40 minutes, then take it out and brush the top of the bread with two light layers of the sugar syrup. Return it to the oven and bake for another 20 minutes.
When it is ready, the babka will be golden brown on top and the internal temperature will be 185 degrees. Place the pan on a cooling rack and brush the top with three more light layers of the sugar syrup. Let it cool for 10-15 minutes before removing the babka from the pan. The sides will be rippled with ribbons of dough…
Slice and serve either warm or at room temperature. The babka pairs really well with a cup of strong coffee, tea or espresso.
Thanks to its bountiful size and rich texture, it makes an ideal holiday food since it can serve a lot of people, transports well and can be frozen for months ahead of time.
When I first posted the babka story on Instagram, several people sent messages requesting the recipe, so I’m pleased to be sharing it here on the blog today. I loved this bread so much that it is now going to be a new annual holiday baking tradition in my house. And I hope it becomes one of yours too. When my dad first met Julianna, she was in her 90s. I love that she was still baking for her family at that age and still possessed the ability and desire to convince a small little boy that sweetness can be found even behind a sometimes gruff exterior.
Cheers to Julianna, Jozefa and my dad for providing glimpses into past family lives, to Helen and Shannon for providing the recipe and to Savory Spice for opening up shop just in time for this cinnamon-scented baking adventure. Hope you guys will be just as smitten with babka as I am.
Update! December 2021…
If you don’t have a loaf pan or a springform pan on hand, but still want to make babka, have no fear. You can also use a cookie sheet and just twist and then smoosh the two twisted strands of babka dough together to form a compact loaf. When baking, the bread will take on a pretty free-form shape like this…
Although it was invented technically in 1927, television didn’t make a widespread appearance in homes until the 1950’s. And cooking shows didn’t reach their heyday until the 1990’s. That means there was no Food Channel, no Great British Baking Show, no Martha Stewart. If you wanted expert instruction in the 1920’s on how to bake a festive looking cake for the holidays you basically had four options as far as guidance… your mom, your grandmother, your favorite cookbook or your favorite radio show…
Agnes White Tizard, the voice of Betty Crocker on Betty Crocker’s Cooking School of the Air taught listeners how to cook for 20 years. Read more about her here.
Very reliable sources for sure, those options would have definitely produced a delicious, time-tested cake that everyone enjoyed, and had been enjoying for years and years. But none of those options would have been able to show you how to make something new and innovative. For that you would have had to go to Chicago – to the Wilton School of Cake Decorating, where you’d get expert hands-on-training on how to make the most pretty and modern cake of the holiday season.
Dewey McKinley Wilton
Started in 1929 by confectionery artist Dewey McKinley Wilton, the Wilton School first taught classes to area pastry chefs in the hotel industry. Dewey had a special relationship with these guys in particular. As a traveling pulled sugar expert, Dewey would show up in hotel kitchens around the Midwest when the pastry chefs needed an extra bit of magnificence to wow their hotel guests.
An example of pulled sugar ribbons atop a modern day cake. This is the type of work Dewey did for area hotels in the 1920’s. Photo via pinterest.
Most of these pastry chefs were wonders themselves in the cake baking department, having been trained in Europe, and were very proficient with a frosting knife and lofty buttery layers. But they weren’t quite as familiar with Dewey’s flair for pulling sugar into hardened shapes and intricate designs.
A 1920’s pastry chef with confectionery creation. Photo courtesy of snackncake.com
Quite curious, they wanted to know about techniques, about processes, about possibilities. And most importantly, all these pastry chefs wanted to know how exactly a pot of boiling melted sugar could eventually turn into a big, brilliant ribbon or a bird or a crunchy piece of abstract art. Dewey was more than happy to share what he knew, but after so many pastry chefs in so many hotels kept asking so many of the same questions over and over again, his entrepreneurial spirit kicked in.
Instead of telling each chef, one by one, how pulled sugar was done, he realized he needed to be teaching one class geared towards many minds. So that’s what he did. He started the Wilton School of Cake Decorating in the dining room of his house in 1929 and charged $25 a class for an expert lesson on how to pull sugar and make hard candies. The class filled up in a jiffy. Nothing excites a pastry chef more than a newfangled way to decorate a sweet treat, and in all that sugary merry making of the new School there was plenty of learning going on. While Dewey was teaching his students, he was also learning about their classical European ways to bake, frost and assemble cakes in eye-catching ways.
An image from the early years of the Wilton School of Cake Decorating.
Soon word spread beyond the pastry chef community. The school was fun and informative and produced the most spectacular and delicious cakes the Midwest had ever experienced. People started arriving for instruction from other towns beyond Chicago, and then other states beyond Illinois. Home cooks, caterers, food economists and restaurant owners were clamoring to learn Dewey’s special way with cakes – a method he wound up calling the Wilton Way – which combined the best parts of European baking with simple easy-to-replicate American designs.
Now getting ready to celebrate its 100th birthday in a few short years, The Wilton School of Cake Decorating and Confectionery Art still remains a bustling educational center for all baking aficionados. Determined to create interesting and engaging art through butter and suagr, Dewey and his following generations grew the business into not only a school, but also a food product and accessories line that can be found in most grocery stores around the country today as well as on their website. They even offer online classes for those who can’t make the trip to Illinois to join the fun in person.
That’s a pretty remarkable career for any business, let alone one in the baking industry where it can be difficult to remain innovative and approachable at the same time. Thanks to Dewey’s Wilton Way and his easily accessible method, he helped dispel the myth that cake decorating was an intimidating, complicated art meant for only a certain type of person. Thousands of accomplished students have graduated from the Wilton program since its inception, many continuing on with successful careers in the baking industry.
Here in the Vintage Kitchen, I was introduced to the Wilton Way through this book…
a 1991 reprint of their 1979 cake decorating book. It is full of attractive cakes, some vibrant with retro charm, others timeless and elegant…
Laid out like coursework, it teaches readers progressively in master class style. Meaning that if you start at the very beginning, and work your way through each chapter, by the end of the book you’ll have amassed so much skill you’ll be able to confidently tackle the baking and decorating of a multi-tiered wedding cake festooned with a bevy of frothy details.
This past week, I endeavored to make their Winter Snowflake Cake – a pale green pastel beauty that consisted of two layers and frosted snowflakes…
This was my first foray into cake decorating with an intentional design, multiple frostings and more than one piping project, so it was a fun adventure, but it definitely didn’t go quite as planned. The Wilton’s are fast to reassure in their book, saying that the best way to make a perfect cake is to practice, practice, practice. I fast forwarded through the beginning chapters and went straight to this cake. That being said, here’s my finished version…
You’ll notice it is missing some elements from the original cake – most noticeably the side snowflakes. I’ll explain how they went awry further down in the post. I’m also sharing the recipes, as I go along too, in case you want to take yourself to school and experiment with making your own vintage snowflake cake this winter as well.
One funny thing about this cake decorating book in particular is that it’s all about cake decorating and only cake decorating, which means that you have to gather a recipe in order to bake the actual layer cake part from another source. I used Martha Stewart’s Butter Cake recipe which turned out great because it baked flat and even on all sides – characteristics you definitely want when making a multiple layer cake.
Martha Stewart’s Butter Cake 1
(makes two 9.5″ inch round cakes)
8 ounces unsalted butter
3 cups cake flour, plus more for dusting
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk
Preheat oven to 350. Butter cake pans and dust with flour, tapping out excess flour.
Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, mix butter and sugar until pale (about 2-3 minutes). Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla and mix again. Add flour mixture in three batches alternating between each batch with two batches of milk. Stir until evenly combined.
Distribute batter evenly between cake pans (this is about 3 1/4 cups of batter per pan).
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.
Let cakes cool in pan on wire rack for 20 minutes. Invert cake layers and remove cake from pan. Let cool on wire rack completely then wrap each cake in wax paper and then plastic wrap and store in the fridge until you are ready to frost.
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There are two types of frosting used for this cake. A pale green buttercream and a bright white royal icing. Both icing recipes are from the Wilton School and are easy to use. They both include a curious ingredient called meringue powder (made by Wilton!) which can be found in the baking section of your grocery or online.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as meringue powder before this project, but basically it is an egg-white substitute used in place of whipping up fresh eggs. Normally, I’m not a fan of substitute convenience products but since this was the first time I was making this cake I wanted to use the products they recommended. Next time, I’ll try to make my own meringue using fresh eggs. Now it’s onto the frosting…
Snow-white Buttercream
(makes 8 cups)
2/3 cup water
4 tablespoons meringue powder
11 1/2 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 1/4 cups butter
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 drops green food coloring
In a large mixing bowl, combine water and meringue powder and whip at high speed until peaks form. Add 4 cups sugar, one cup at a time, beating at low speed after each addition. Alternately, add butter and remainder of sugar. Add salt and vanilla and beat at low speed until smooth. Add food coloring one drop at a time, (a little goes a long way!) mixing thoroughly between drops until a desired shade is achieved. The color will deepen as the icing ages, so keep that in mind when adding drops.
Special note: This recipe makes enough frosting for one two layer cake including top, sides and filling between layers, plus a little extra. Leftover frosting can be stored in an air-tight container in the fridge for several weeks.
Next, I set to work frosting the top of the first layer and then the top and sides of the next layer…
When it was all sufficiently frosted, I cleaned the frosting knife and then gently scraped it as evenly as possibly around the sides of the cake to create a smooth texture.That same treatment was repeated on top of the cake too so that it maintained a flat and level surface. At this stage, I learned a fun little trick. A little drop of water helps to smooth icing out – so round I went once more on the sides with a wet frosting knife. Then the cake was set aside so that the icing could harden (or “crust” as Wilton described it). Next on the schedule was making the icing for the snowflakes…
Meringue Royal Icing
(makes 3 1/2 cups)
3 level tablespoons meringue powder
1 lb. confectioner’s sugar
3 1/2 oz. warm water
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
Combine all ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl. At first, mix slowly with an electric mixer then increase the speed to medium and mix for 7-10 minutes.
Things is where things got a little bit tricky. While the snowflake icing is super easy to make, the method used to make the snowflakes is really difficult. It involved piping icing onto wax paper…
letting each snowflake dry for an hour…
re-piping each one again (aka over-piping), letting it dry for another hour…
and then carefully removing each snowflake from the wax paper and adhering them to the cake one by one. In theory, this sounds simple enough, but each snowflake was very tricky to remove without them doing this…
After many attempts and many hours, I abandoned this method of snowflake making altogether. Evidently I need more practice in this department! Instead, I just carried on and piped the large snowflake directly on top of the cake, freehand style, and left the sides bare.
Finally, this winter snowflake cake was trimmed on top and bottom with little snowballs. Wilton recommended using two-different sized pastry tubes #3 and #6 for this task, but I just used just one ziploc bag and it worked great.
And that was how this vintage snowflake cake came to be. It definitely isn’t a perfect cake compared to Wilton standards, but it was a whole lot of fun to make and has me thinking about future designs once I practice, practice, practice as Wilton often recommends.
Have you guys ever decorated cakes like this before? If you have any tips or techniques or adventure stories of your own confectionery creations, please share them in the comments section below. It will be fun to help propel the educational portion of this post, so that we can all learn together. And most definitely, if you embark on this winter snowflake baking project, please let us know how it all tuned out in your kitchen.
In the meantime, learn more about the wonderful world of Wilton and their inspiring vintage cake decorating book here. Several other shop items also made an appearance in this post’s photos as well… find the 1960’s era glass cake stand here, the 1920’s silver plate water pitcher here, and the vintage embroidered tea towel here.
Hope your weekend is as sweet as buttercream and as lofty as a layer cake! Cheers!
Russian Tea Cakes… those dense little snowy bundles of sweet confectionary sugar, butter, flour, and nuts is a classic Christmas cookie that has been a staple in our holiday baking since I was a little kid. One of the most simple of cookies to make, it has other aliases as well…Mexican Wedding Cakes, Rolling in the Snow, Holy Rollers and the plain Jane, practical name… Pecan Balls.
The history behind these guys is muddy but a popular theory is that they originated in Europe as a tea time snack (hence their name Russian Tea Cakes) and migrated to Mexico with European nuns where they became a popular cookie served at weddings (Mexican Wedding Cakes!). A friend who grew up in Canada knew them as Rolling in the Snow cookies (how very fun!) and at a church-sponsored flea market in the South, I once saw them advertised as Holy Rollers on the food and beverage table. That could have been someone’s clever name made up just for that day, so I’m not sure if this one has actual traction, but it does pay homage to the nun theory anyway. And of course, for all the literal lovers out there, the Pecan Ball needs no explanation as to how that name came about since indeed these cookies are ball-shaped and can contain pecans.
Traditionally they look something like this…
and can contain any nuts you like – pecans, walnuts, peanuts, pistachios, macademia, etc. My mom always used walnuts and favored the recipe from the Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book printed in 1950…
so that became my family tradition as an adult too. Some other recipes include additional ingredients of cinnamon or loose tea, lavender or lemon zest but Betty Crocker’s version is the one we like best.
Russian Tea Cakes
1 cup soft butter
1/2 cup sifted confectioner’s sugar (plus additional following baking)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups sifted flour (Betty recommended Gold Medal flour back in the day)
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup finely chopped nuts
Mix butter, sugar and vanilla together in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Sift flour and salt together and mix into butter. Stir in nuts and then cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove dough from fridge and roll into 1″ inch balls* using your hands. Place 2.5 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet and bake until set but not brown (between 10-12 minutes).** While still warm roll in confectioner’s sugar. Cool and then roll in sugar once again.
* To make snowmen: You will need to form three balls per snowman ranging in size from big (base) medium (middle) small (head). Roll each ball in your hand to shape it into a typical snowball shape and then flatten the big and medium balls on the top and bottom with your hand so that that they will sit on top of each other without rolling off. The smallest ball (the head) should only be flattened on the bottom (so that your snowman will have a round head on top). The snowmen pictured here are three inches in height, so use your judgment when shaping as far as ball sizing. If you want to make bigger snowmen, baking times will need to be extended.
** If you are making snowmen – Bake all the big bottom base snowballs together on one sheet and then the medium and small balls on another sheet since the smaller balls usually take 1-2 minutes less baking time then the big balls. Your snowball sizes will look something like this…
After you’ve baked and sugared all your cookies, now you are ready for the fun part of decorating. This is what I had on hand in the “props” department…
Orange rinds for the scarf and nose, black peppercorns for the eyes and rosemary branches for the arms. To make the scarf and nose just take a vegetable peeler and peel about 3 inches of rind in one long continues piece. Trim with a sharp paring knife to your desired scarf thickness and curl the rind around your fingers to shape it like a scarf (once the rind dries out it will hold the shape perfectly). Wedge the scarf into the section where the head meets the body.
Press the peppercorns into the head gently. They will stick on their own (this step might take a couple of attempts!).
Cut a thin long triangle out of your excess orange rind (to mimic the shape of a carrot) and gently press into the head where the nose should be. The orange rind will stick to the cookie on its own but might take a couple of attempts too.
Cut rosemary branches to size and poke into each side of the middle ball.
And now your snowman has come to life! Just like the ones you make in your yard, each one will have his own little personality depending on how you style it. The sky is the limit when it comes to decorating your guy so feel free to get creative if you want to make a hat, a jacket or a corncob pipe. Additional mounds of powdered sugar help set the stage for a little wintertime scene, day or night…
Hope this project adds a little fun to your day! Cheers to a winter wonderland from the sweetest little snowmen in the Vintage Kitchen!
In the Vintage Kitchen: Where History Comes To Eat 