I am very lucky to be surrounded by many excellent bakers in my and my husband’s side of the family, who also love to share their recipes.
I have been baking honey cakes for a very long time now, and love them all, but this one is even lighter in texture and consists of other special ingredients, hence the recipe for Honey Cake Maria.
While Christians are getting ready to celebrate Easter, the Jewish people are preparing for Passover.
Passover commemorates the formative experience of the Jewish people, and their transformation from scattered tribes indentured in Egypt, to a nation on the road of redemption.
The Easter Basket of special foods (described below) is arranged on Holy Saturday and taken to church, where a special blessing ceremony with prayers and sprinkling with Holy Water, is performed by the parish priest. The blessed food is served on Easter Sunday Brunch, once the fast is broken after the morning Easter Liturgy.
As you already know from my previous post, that Ukrainians follow an Easter tradition of blessing an Easter Basket full of special foods, which is covered with a special embroidered scarf.
These scarfs are hand embroidered by family members, and used only for the purpose of covering the Easter Baskets.
I already have several different Paska/Babka recipes that I tried and loved, but this one sparked my interest because it only requires 4 cups of flour to make two medium-sized Paska, hence perfect for a smaller family.