Tag Archives: Rosh Hashanah

Apple Challah Babka

Watch what happens when challah and babka collide.

On Rosh Hashanah, it’s traditional to dip apples in honey, to symbolize our desire for a sweet year ahead. In my quest to be efficient and practical, I thought it would be clever to bake my honey and apples right into the challah.

Adding apples to challah dough is tricky. Raw apples would leach too much moisture into the dough and make the challah soggy. Sautéing them first, solved that problem. To further boost the apple flavour, I spread some apple butter onto the dough. Apple butter does not actually contain any butter. It is made by cooking down apples into a very concentrated state. it’s quite tart, as no sugar is added to it.

I sprinkled my dough with golden raisins, but I know how contoversial raisins are, so leave them out if you have a family of raisin haters.

While a babka is traditionally baked in a loaf pan, on Rosh Hashanah, challah is round, a circle without an end, to symbolize our wish for a year in which life and blessings continue without end. So once the dough is twisted, just coil it into a knot.

Wishing you all a sweet and healthy new year.

Click here to print recipe for Apple Challah Babka.

Salted Honey Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches

I consider Honey Cake to be the Jewish equivalent to Fruit Cake. It’s always served at Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) celebrations but no one really likes it.

Honey figures prominently in Rosh Hashanah menus as it symbolizes our desire for a sweet new year. The choice of honey was brilliantly explained on the website torah.org with this insight:
“A bee can inflict pain by its sting, yet it also produces delicious honey.  Life has this same duality of potential. We pray that our choices will result in a sweet year.”

But nowhere is it written that honey must be baked into a cake. This year, Salted Honey Gingerbread ice Cream Sandwiches are on the menu. I’m a rebel.

Watch how they come together.

The cookie stamps I used are from Nordic Ware. Rolling the cookie dough in granulated sugar prevents the cookie from sticking to the cookie mold. You could certainly just bake the cookies without the bee themed stamps, but I couldn’t resist.

I tested out this recipe this summer and I wrapped each ice cream sandwich individually in plastic wrap and stored them in the freezer. We quickly discovered that the frozen cookies become rock hard making the sandwiches really difficult to eat. So in the recipe, I suggest you cut out the ice cream circles and store them a baking sheet wrapped in plastic wrap in the freezer. Assemble the sandwiches, with the room temperature, soft and chewy cookies, just before you want to eat them.

The addition of the salt to the honey ice cream keeps it from being cloyingly sweet. The spicy chewy ginger cookies are a perfect match for the sweet honey ice cream. Wishing you all a sweet and healthy new year.

Click here to print recipe for Salted Honey Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches.

Rosh Hashanah Twisted Apple and Honey Challah

The last time I made this challah was Rosh Hashanah 2019. We had 35 guests around the table celebrating the New Year. We won’t discuss 2020, except to note that there were only 3 of us at the table. But this year, most of our clan are double vaxxed, so we will be 16 strong around the table at the cottage in 10 days. It’s time to celebrate again.

It’s traditional to dip apples in honey, to symbolize our desire for a sweet year ahead. In my desire to be efficient and practical, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to bake my honey and apples right into the challah.

My starting point was my favourite challah dough, (Margo’s Challah) made with honey instead of sugar. On Rosh Hashanah, challah is round, a circle without an end, to symbolize our wish for a year in which life and blessings continue without end. I was inspired by cloudykitchen’s Mixed Nut and Dulce de Leche Brioche Knot. Her clever twisting method was perfect for Rosh Hashanah.

Adding apples to challah dough is tricky. Raw apples would leach too much moisture into the dough and make the challah soggy. Sautéing them first, solved that problem. To further boost the apple flavour, I spread some apple butter onto the dough.

See how it all comes together.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy and sweet new year.

Ombre Apple-Honey Galette

If you were at the Smiths Falls YIG (Your Independent Grocer) last week, and saw a masked woman pawing through every apple bin, looking for perfect specimens in every colour of the rainbow, that was me. I apologize for getting my germs over every apple!

I realize that August is a bit early to start posting about fall apples, but Rosh Hashanah is in two weeks and we’ve got to get our ass in gear. I’m not a fan of traditional honey cake. I find it too cloyingly sweet. I wanted to find a way of incorporating both apples and honey into a dessert.

Apples and honey go together on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), like cookies and milk, every other day of the year! We dip apples in honey to symbolizes our wishes for a sweet year for family, friends and all the Jewish people. While this explanation makes sense, I have often wondered why specifically apples and honey?  Why not figs dipped into date syrup?

In researching this question, the interpretation I discovered on the website torah.org, resonated quite strongly with me.Their insight regarding the apple part of the equation, is explained this way:
“On most fruit trees the leaves appear before the fruit, thus providing a protective cover for the young fruit. The apple, however, makes a preemptive move by appearing before the leaves. The Jewish people are compared to an apple because we are willing to live out our Jewish lives even if this seems to leave us unprotected. “

The choice of honey was brilliantly explained with this insight:
“A bee can inflict pain by its sting, yet it also produces delicious honey.  Life has this same duality of potential. We pray that our choices will result in a sweet year.”

And so apples and honey it is again, this year on my holiday table.

You’ll need 5 different varieties of apples if you want to make the Rainbow/Ombre effect I produced here. You’ll need two of each kind of apple. Look for dark red apples, pink apples, red-orange apples, yellow apples and green apples. A very sharp paring knife and about 20 minutes of concentration and you will be ready to assemble.

I used my favourite galette dough as the base. Impossibly flaky and delicious it is a versatile dough. I mixed some ground almonds, honey, egg and flour to make a honey paste (frangipane) as the base for the apples. The dough is folded up around the apples in a very casual way. Nothing precious here. Sprinkle it all with some cinnamon sugar and then into a hot oven.

The colours do fade a bit when baked, but the taste is so delicious. I brushed it with a honey glaze when it was still warm, for extra shine.

A scoop of vanilla ice cream would be very welcome.

Or just plain with a cup of coffee or tea.

Apple and Honey Challah Twist

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is just a few weeks away. It’s traditional to dip apples in honey, to symbolize our desire for a sweet year ahead. In my desire to be efficient and practical, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to bake my honey and apples right into the challah. I have been hard at work the past two weeks, figuring out just how to achieve that.

My starting point was my favourite challah dough. On Rosh Hashanah, challah is round, a circle without an end, to symbolize our wish for a year in which life and blessings continue without end. I was inspired by cloudykitchen’s Mixed Nut and Dulce de Leche Brioche Knot. Her clever twisting method was perfect for Rosh Hashanah.

After baking 5 versions of apple and honey challah, I believe I have nailed it. My husband, my chiropractor and my UPS man were happy to eat my experiments. None were a total fail, but there were a few issues along the way. The first hurdle to overcome was how to add the apples. Raw apples leached too much moisture into the challah, and made for a soggy bread. Sauteeing them first, solved that problem.

The apple flavour was kind of muted in the finished bread. In order to amp up the apple volume, I spread the dough with a thin layer of apple butter. Apple butter is simply very concentrated applesauce. There is actually no butter in it, only apples. It’s tangy and really packs a wallop of flavour. Some brown sugar, cinnamon and golden raisins provided a perfect counterpoint for all that zingy apple flavour.

Check out my video to see how it all came together.


Any leftover bread makes amazing toast the next morning. It’s a perfect way to segue gently from summer into fall. I’m not quite ready for pumpkin, but I will happily embrace apples in any form.