Breaking Bread with Chocolate Babka

I love making new recipes of breads that come from different cultures, and I love the history involved.  No matter the culture or religion, people all across the world share this commonality: we all celebrate with food.  Life, death, marriages, births, and achievements are all celebrated with special foods. 

Yesterday, I was drawn to Smitten Kitchen’s Chocolate Babka Bread recipe…. After all, chocolate intertwined in yeasted dough would draw anyone to it.  Babka, sounds Jewish, and certainly, there are many stories of Babka originating in Israel.  However, it is also unique to Eastern Europe, bread sweetened with dried fruit as chocolate and oranges were luxuries most in the region could not afford.  Chocolate was likely added later, an American-Jewish invention, and a great one at that. 

But whether Israeli, Eastern European, or Jewish in origin, one thing that was on my mind as I was making this recipe was World War II.  Today marks the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and the few remaining prisoners who survived will make their way there, to remember while most of the world chooses to forget. 

My husband I visited Dachau on our honeymoon, a somber day that I would never change.  It is amazing how much sorrow you can feel by simply looking at an empty barrack.  And that is how we get people to remember, to feel compassion for others, to understand there is more than self in this world.  

This past weekend, we took our son to a park to play, and upon arrival there, a similar aged boy approached Luke, claimed he was a dinosaur, and proceeded to roar. A friendship was born, later solidified by the sharing, albeit reluctantly, of a donut.  The boy’s name was Ira. 

How many instances like this were stolen from our world?  Jewish children cruelly and methodically murdered; German children wrongly manipulated to be driven by hatred.

I follow The GreatestGenerations Foundation on Facebook, and talk about a great non-profit.  They have been posting stories all week long of Holocaust survivors, and one quote really stuck for me.  Mrs. Susan (Zuzkai) Kluger, 80, was taken to Auschwitz in 1944.  While she was chosen for hard labor, her mother and sister were sent to the gas chambers.  Here is her quote: “When you’ve been to the hell and survived, nothing matters other than being happy.  I loved my children.  I gave them 100% love, everything my mother gave to me, because that is all you have.”

And in the spirit of love, this bread is just that, a product to share with those you cherish, a way to celebrate, to thank, to feel love with each bite.  It is a time-consuming bread, but the effort is worth it.  I can’t improve upon Smitten Kitchen’s recipes (they’re fantastic always), so here is the link to her recipe.  Below are the step-by-step pictures of assembly to finish:

The only couple of notes I have are that I used orange peel, and I think I would leave it without it next time.  I’m not crazy about orange and chocolate (I know some are), so it doesn’t really do anything for me.  Also, I did make this recipe in one day by mixing the dough in the morning, letting it double in a warm place for 3 hours, and then I put it in the fridge for an hour before rolling out. 

For those who enjoy reading books about Europe during World War II, here are a couple of books that I highly recommend:

Finding Rebecca by Eoin Dempsey

The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman

The Baker’s Daughter by Sarah Mccoy

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

All of these books will bring tears to your eyes, but sadness is good.  Without sadness, we can't know happiness.  You should be happy, especially for those robbed of time to do just that.

Time to fly,

Liz