According to my genetic profile on 23andMe, I am drawn to sweet over salty, bitter or sour. Hah! I needed to pay them $99 for that information?
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Maybe that’s why I love the cuisine of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, so much.
Sweetness is the order of the day. We dip apples in honey, symbolizing our wish for a sweet new year, and sweet foods appear on the holiday table as edible expressions of hope for the year ahead.
North Orange County synagogues — North County Chabad Center in Yorba Linda, Temple Beth Tikvah in Fullerton and Temple Beth Ohr in La Mirada — are abuzz with preparations for the holiday, which begins at sundown on Sept. 11.
For the Temple Beth Tikvah community, the holiday will be bittersweet this year as members mourn the passing of their beloved High Holiday Choir Director Aaron Hunt.
My favorite Rosh Hashanah symbolic food is not my grandmother’s honey cake — we kids hated its strong, smoky, almost bitter taste — but my mother’s lighter version from her friend, Corinne Pink of Nova Scotia.
Is it the honey cake itself that is so satisfying or the memories it brings back of that summer before I turned 14 when my parents let me skip camp in favor of accompanying them as they sang their way through New England and Nova Scotia?
I got to visit Molly Picon, the legendary star of Yiddish theater, screen and television, at her home at the foot of the Berkshires. She and my parents often shared the stage on the Sunday WEVD live radio show, The American-Jewish Caravan of Stars. And I finally got to see firsthand how my parents actually made a living: entertaining and fundraising for Israel bonds.
In Nova Scotia, the most memorable part of the trip for me was the arrival of Princess Margaret, who almost killed herself stepping out of her shoe as she exited the small plane. For my mother, the most impressive moment was when Corinne sent her mother out into the yard to dig up potatoes for our dinner.
As summer turns to fall with Rosh Hashanah in the air, I once again retrieve Corinne’s honey cake recipe and remember fondly that long-ago summer when lifetime memories were made.
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Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook.” Her website is cookingjewish.com.
NOVA SCOTIA HONEY ORANGE SPONGE CAKE
From “Cooking Jewish” by Judy Bart Kancigor; yields 12 servings
Ingredients:
• 1 cup cake flour
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
• 1 cup corn oil
• 1 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 2 tablespoons orange liqueur or brandy
• Grated zest of 1 orange
• 1 teaspoon pure orange extract
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 10-inch tube pan with removable bottom with circle of parchment paper cut slightly larger than bottom. Press extra paper against sides of pan.
2. Sift both flours with baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, and salt into a bowl.
3. Set aside 1/4 cup sugar. Beat egg yolks well with electric mixer on medium-high speed. Gradually add remaining 3/4 cup sugar; continue blending until mixture is thick and lemon-colored, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium; blend in oil and honey, then orange juice, liqueur, zest, and extract. Reduce speed to low: gradually blend in flour mixture.
4. Using clean, dry bowl and beaters, beat egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually blend in reserved 1/4 cup sugar. Raise speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form. Stir 1/4 of egg whites into batter; then fold in remaining egg whites in 3 additions.
5. Scrape batter into prepared pan; bake 30 minutes. Reduce temperature to 300 degrees; bake until top of cake springs back when touched, about 45 minutes more.
6. Remove from oven; let cake rest in pan 30-45 seconds. Invert pan on its feet or sitting level over a soda bottle; cool completely.
7. Run knife around center tube and sides of pan; lift tube from outer pan. Gently slide knife between bottom of cake and pan; lift cake off pan. Cut into slices and serve.
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