From the gingerbread-like honey cakes of Brazil to the honey-soaked Farina Cake of Egypt, we’re examining four classic honey cakes and the places they call home.  JAKE COHEN  ON HONEY CAKE The author of the new cookbook Jew-ish: A Cookbook: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch offers some sweet insight and a sweeter recipe for his Rosh Hashanah-ready Apples and Honey Upside-Down Cake ROSH HASHANAH ROOTS “Honey cake, and the traditions surrounding Rosh Hashanah, feels especially important to secular Jews like myself.We don’t necessarily keep with all the traditions, but when it comes to high holy days, like Rosh Hashanah, those are the most important days of the year.Whether you’re religious or nonreligious, you still celebrate them no matter what.

Rosh Hashanah, as the celebration of the new year, is full of symbolism. Eating something sweet portends having a sweet year.Apples and honey are classic sweet things we incorporate into the many meals.In my nontraditional twist, I envisioned a honey cake with the added value of caramel apples.” HONEY HERITAGE “Honey cakes are really a part of the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition.

In Eastern Europe, where the Ashkenazi people lived, it was common for bakers to sweeten their pastries with honey.Because, before there was sugar, there was honey, which was much easier to get and use.And then, whereve

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