Category: Cakes

Hawaij Honey Cake with Labneh Frosting

If you are lucky enough to own a copy of Millennial Kosher, chances are you are one of hundreds who has made my hawaij garlic confit a staple on their Shabbos table. I for one can not get through the weekend without the intoxicating smell of hawaij wafting through my home. And my challah can’t live without dipping into the fragrant oily dip.

I’m proud to have introduced so many people to one of my favorite spice blends – a Yemenite curry that is famous for it’s use in chicken soup. What many don’t know, however, is that there is also a sweet version of hawaij, traditionally used for coffee. Since many honey cakes incorporate coffee into the batter, I figured that spicing up the cake with some hawaij for coffee was the perfect way to introduce the sweet side of the Yemenite spice.

Besides for the fragrant spice blend, I also incorporated one of my favorite Israeli ingredients – silan or date honey. It’s interesting to note that when the Torah speaks of Israel being the “Land that flows with milk and honey”, it is actually referring to date honey. There is nothing quite like dates from the shuk in Israel, and silan has become a much-loved ingredient in my house. It works both in sweet and savory applications (try it over pargiot!) and it’s delicious when paired with tahini.

Now lets talk about the other unique component of this amazing recipe – the frosting! If you’d never tried making labneh before, it’s so much easier than it seems! Labneh is the Israeli cream cheese – light and creamy with a healthy dose of tang. I’m personally not a fan of classic American cream cheese, so it’s all about the labneh for me!

Labneh is extremely versatile – it can be rolled into balls and marinated in olive oil with different spices, drizzled with some olive oil and za’atar for dipping pita, or made into a sweet frosting with some added hawaij to perfectly compliment this breakfast loaf!

I am totally obsessed over how this recipe came together! The cake is crazy moist, nothing like that dry honey cake we all dread. The hawaij adds just enough spice, but nothing over the top, and the creamy frosting adds a nice tang to balance out the sweetness of the cake.

My favorite part about this cake though, was decorating it!! I had a vision for incorporating my favorite seasonal fruit – figs – and I just love how it came out! Feel free to play around with fresh pomegranate, honeycomb, cinnamon sticks and other fun toppings to make the cake your own.

I always say I’m not a baker, but this recipe helped me realize that even though I don’t like the science of baking, there is still so much room for creativity and if I can get around the technicalities, I can create a masterpiece.

Here’s to a New Year of trying new things, delicious eats and sweetness all around!

Hawaij Honey Cake

1 cup flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp hawaij for coffee, recipe follows
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 egg
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c oil
1/2 c silan (may sub with regular honey)
1/2 cup warm water mixed with 1 tsp coffee
fresh figs, gooseberries, and dates, optional, for decorating

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, hawaij, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk until incorporated. In a separate bowl, mix the egg, sugar, oil, honey and coffee until creamy. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until a batter forms. The batter will be liquidy.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely.

Cover the cake with a layer of parchment paper and foil and rest overnight. Frost and decorate, if desired, before serving.

Hawaij for Coffee

1 tbsp cardamom
1 1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves

Method:

Add ingredients to a small bowl and stir to combine.

Labneh Frosting

2 6oz. containers Norman’s plain Greek yogurt
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 stick butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp hawaj for coffee
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla

Method:

Line a fine mesh strainer with 2 layers of cheesecloth and set over a bowl. Mix the yogurt with salt and place into the cheesecloth. Fold the cheesecloth over the yogurt and cover with a plate and a heavy can or jar. Place in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until creamed. Remove the bowl from the fridge and scoop out the thickened yogurt into the mixing bowl, beat very lightly to incorporate – do not overmix. Add in the hawaij, powdered sugar and vanilla and stir with a spoon until a creamy frosting forms.

Refrigerate the frosting until you are ready to serve. Frost and serve.

This post was sponsored by Norman’s. All opinions are my own. 

Related Recipes:

parsnip honey cake with cream cheese frosting
honey cake with caramelized apples
bourbon honey cake balls

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Ice Cream Sandwich Birthday Cake

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated my son’s 4th birthday. He suffers from life threatening food allergies, and most of his life he’s been told what he CAN’T have. At every birthday party, family get-together and holiday, you’ll find him sitting at a separate table, with a small plate of allergy-free food that we’ve managed to salvage for him. And he never complains. He’s such a champ, always so understanding and mature about it.

Ice cream is one of his favorite things and each day on his way home from school, he asks me to take him to the ice cream store. I really wanted to get him an ice cream cake for his birthday, but it’s impossible to find an allergy-free one, so I decided to make it. This cake was super easy to put together, but you’d never know from looking at it. Needless to say, he was so ecstatic, and a few minutes into devouring his slice, he unassumingly leaned over and gave me a hug. It was everything.


Ice Cream Sandwich Birthday Cake

7 vanilla ice cream sandwiches, cut in half lengthwise
7 chocolate ice cream sandwiches, cut in half lengthwise
2 quarts cookies and cream ice cream, softened
4 sugar cones, crushed
1 cup rainbow sprinkles
special equipment: 9″ springform pan

Method:

Working quickly (so your ice cream doesn’t melt), line the wall of the springform pan with the ice cream sandwiches, alternating between chocolate and vanilla. Freeze until solid.

Spread 1 quart of the ice cream in the center of the cake, top with crushed sugar cones and then the second quart of ice cream. Spread the sprinkles on the top of the ice cream and freeze the cake until solid.

VARIATION: You may use 1 quart chocolate and 1 quart vanilla instead of cookies and cream, or any ice cream of your choice. You can also use crushed oreos instead of sugar cones.

NOTE: Feel free to decorate the cake with fun lolly pops (not the sad little ones I used!) or other candy!

Related Recipes:

funfetti birthday cake
funfetti rose cake smash
ice cream sundae cookies
3-layer rainbow cookie cake

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Funfetti Rose Cake Smash!

I can’t believe it’s been a year since my baby girl was born, it went by so fast, how do we stop the clock?! It’s baby #5 for us, so it hasn’t been the easiest transition, but I was surprised and excited to still have those “first baby” feelings, even though I’ve been through this stage so many times. Maybe it’s because she came after two boys, but I couldn’t wait to put all the headbands and frilly things on her, and I still relish dressing her up each and every morning.

I’ve been dreaming about her cake smash for months, pinning for inspiration and changing my mind a million times about the style and theme of the shoot. I knew I wanted to do it all on my own, especially the cake – even though I dread making layered cakes ‘cuz I suck at it! Most of the cake smash shoots I found had a clear color scheme and were done indoors, but I wanted something unique and whimsical, so I went outdoors.

It’s funny how the cake really brought the whimsy I was looking for – because it kinda happened by mistake. I mean, I basically screwed up the whole first layer of marzipan, and I needed to cover it up with something, so I decided to make a skirt. I had originally wanted to do a smooth layer of marzipan and spread the roses around the cake, but I’m so in love with this accidental design because it’s everything I never knew I even wanted!

I knew I wanted funfetti inside, ‘cuz baby cake just needs sprinkles, so I went with my easy no-fail, no-mixture recipe, ‘cuz that how I do cake. Or should I say, how I don’t do cake? Layered cakes literally give me nightmares – and for good reason. I won’t even try to explain the mess of me trimming the layers down, but let me just say – THANK GOD FOR MARZIPAN. And thank you Molly Yeh for teaching me that you can use the most delicious paste instead of bland fondant to decorate cake. It’s basically like working with playdough, and it can do miracles to destroyed crumbly layers. Especially when those crumbly layers are doomed to be smashed by little hands.

Let me just say that I know these photos make it look easy, but here’s the thing – photographers can’t photograph their own kids. It’s just too stressful. Thank G-d I brought my 11 year old with me to the shoot  – her help was indispensible, especially when she jumped up and down, making funny faces so my daughter would stop crying and actually smile. There were a lot more tears than smiles at that shoot (and I’m not talking about the baby…just kidding…I didn’t actually CRY!).


I don’t know who invented cake smashes, or how long they’ve been around, but I don’t remember it being a thing with my older kids. I love that I have these beautiful momentos of my daughter’s first birthday, and that I had an excuse to play around with marzipan. I’d never go back to boring fondant again, and I look forward to getting over my fear of layered cakes and making some more intentional designs!


If you’ve got a baby birthday coming up, I hope my cake smash inspired you to think outside the box and create your own!


Cake Smash Deets:

Wreath: Amazon
Outfit: Etsy
Shoes: Century21
Carpet: Homegoods
Stool: Homegoods
Balloons: Family Dollar
Lanterns: Michael’s
Cake Banner: Homemade (craft paper, bakery twine and skewers)
Location: Liberty Municipal Park

Funfetti Rose Cake Smash Cake

3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 cup oil
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup colored sprinkles
1 recipe vanilla buttercream
2 8oz. packages of marzipan
gel food coloring in red and green

Method:

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar and baking powder. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, oil, milk and vanilla. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir until smooth. Fold in the sprinkles and pour the batter into 3 greased and floured 6.5″ round cake pans*. Bake at 350 degrees until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely and unmold onto a parchment lined work surface. Spread each layer with frosting (trim cakes to flatten, if necessary) and stack them on top of each other. Spread the frosting around the sides of the cake, scraping to remove excess.

Knead the marzipan until smooth on a clean, dry work surface dusted with powdered sugar to prevent it from sticking. Divide the marzipan in two, with most of it reserved for red food coloring, and a small portion for green. Work the food coloring into the marzipan until incorporated. Roll the pink marzipan into a large round, about a quarter of an inch thick. Carefully lay the marzipan over the cake and smooth the sides with your hands. Cut excess off the bottom of the cake. Roll out a strip of red marzipan and pinch it around the cake to create a skirt.

For the roses, cut small strips of marzipan and roll them up to create a flower. Press the roses around the seam of the “skirt”. Create small leaves, pinching the center with a toothpick to create a line. Place the leaves around the roses. If needed, brush with a bit of water to help it stick.

* you will have a bit of leftover batter, you can use it to make cupcakes.

3 layer rainbow cookie cake

blogoversary funfetti cake
it’s a girl!

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Salami Babka

I…I…I…don’t even know what to say…. but BREAKING THE INTERNET comes to mind!! Move over Kim Kardashian because I’ve got Salami Babka in the house!!

I don’t know how I’ve held it in for this long – this gorgeous savory babka has been eating away at me (or have I been eating away at it?) ever since I conceived of it months ago… I wanted to shout it from the rooftops the second this baby came out of the oven, but it was not to be, because, as you know, I save all my SALAMI revelations for Purim! Yes, Purim. The holiday of booze, dress-up, and here at Busy In Brooklyn, SALAMI.

My salami hacks have been making their mark each year for the holiday, and I think I might have finally outdone my drunken hasselback salami, because, lets face it – ain’t nothin better than bread – and when you fill that bread with the sweet and savory fillings of apricot jam, mustard, brown sugar and salami – well…. you basically BREAK. THE. INTERNET.

Babka has been all the rage this year, from the famous Bread’s bakery babka (who’s recipe was recently made public in the Baking Breads cookbook) to the spreads in The New York Times, Bon Appetit Magazine, and all that other stuff. I have to admit that I have never made true, authentic babka (with buttery brioche dough), although I often fill my leftover challah with gooey chocolate spread, twist it up and call it a day.

I’ve had savory babka on my mind for a while now, and I was kind of surprised that I haven’t seen too many savory variations on the net. Especially since turning traditional sweets into savory adaptations is kind of a thing right now. My biggest obstacle with a salami babka was the brioche dough. The good stuff is loaded with butter and I just couldn’t stand the thought of using all that margarine (the rules of kosher forbid me from eating milk with meat, so no butter and salami together). And yes I realize that’s ironic since this thing is loaded with salami (insert facepalm emoji here!)

I considered going with a challah dough, but I finally decided I would make this super easy for everyone and just use pizza dough. Of course you can use any dough you choose, and even go crazy with the deli you stuff it with. Don’t worry about all of the mess – the little bits of salami that poke out of the bread and get all crispy and caramelized are my favorite part of this recipe!

Now if you’ve missed my whole salami situation – the reason for my yearly Purim salami postings are due to a little nugget of information that I read a couple of years back. I don’t know if it was true, or it was all a Purim joke – but it made mention of the fact that some people have a tradition to eat salami on Purim since it is hung, like Haman. I thought it was the coolest food custom I had ever read, so I adopted it. The part that you don’t know though, is that that was a huge deal for me! Why? read on.

So growing up, my mom would make salami sandwiches every Friday afternoon for lunch for my siblings and I. She’d send us outside to the courtyard of our building to eat them, so we wouldn’t make a mess inside the house before Shabbat. Little did she know, we all hated those little hard white pieces inside the salami (I’m pretty sure they were solid fat!), so one by one, we all chucked our salami sandwiches down the incinerator chute – every. single. week. My poor mom thought we were eating lunch and little did she know!

From thereon out, I never looked at salami again. For years. Until I got married and the only thing my husband knew how to cook from his Yeshiva days was salami and eggs. I always swore I’d never try it, until one day, he convinced me, and the rest is history! I learned that cooking out the salami fat leaves you with a super crispy, tasty bits of heaven that are so perfect for trashing up in fun ways!

Just. Like. This. Lets get hangin’!

Salami Babka

1 lb. pizza*, challah or brioche dough
1/3 cup apricot jam
2 tbsp deli mustard
2 tbsp brown sugar
7 oz. Abeles & Heymann salami, thinly sliced
2 tbsp everything bagel spice

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Flour your work surface and roll the dough out to about 11″ x 16″. Melt your apricot jam in the microwave or in a small saucepan and brush over the dough. Squeeze some mustard over the jam and sprinkle with brown sugar. Spread the salami slices out in one layer and starting from the long end, roll up jelly-roll-style. Slice the roll in half down the center, and gently twist the two strips around each other. Don’t worry if some of the salami falls out, or if pieces stick out of the dough, just try to keep the layers from falling apart. Place the salami babka into a greased loaf pan and sprinkle with everything bagel spice. If any of the salami fell out, just tuck it into the sides of the pan.

Bake the babka until golden, about  35-45 minutes. Remove from the loaf pan and slice. Serve warm, with mustard for dipping.

NOTE: I know this recipe seems messy but the idea is to have some of the salami piece sticking out of the dough so that they get crispy and caramelized, while other pieces stay moist on the inside. The thinner you slice the salami, the more your babka will hold together, so try to slice as thinly as you can.

VARIATION: Try this recipe with kosher bacon, or other deli meats like turkey and/or pastrami.

*of course I used store-bought pizza dough because I’m about the 1-2-3!


This post is sponsored by Abeles & Heymann. Follow them on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter! 

Related Recipes:

drunken hasselback salami
salami quiche
beer battered salami chips with beer mustard
salami chips with dipping sauce

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Paleo Chocolate Muffins

I keep waiting for life to get a bit less hectic. When baby #5 came five weeks early this summer, life turned upside down. We thought we had everything all worked out. We were spending July in upstate New York and planned to return for the second month of the summer, so I’d be near the hospital for my late-August due date. Instead, we drove for two+ hours in the wee of night while I labored in the front seat hoping that my water wouldn’t break! Alas, we made it to the hospital with more than enough time, because my labor lasted 24 hours. You just never know.

My husband packed up all our stuff from the country (we all know how that went), and I started looking for an extra hand to help with the kids while I nursed my preemie around the clock. Slowly but surely, things began to fall into place. The kids transitioned to their new summer arrangements, I found an awesome girl to help out, and I rested up at my Mom’s house. But then camp ended. And school was two weeks away. And we had all the holidays coming, so I needed to buy holiday clothes, uniforms, school supplies and all that New Year stuff that is just. so. hectic. Once that all died down, I started to plan for my son’s Upshernish, a ritual hair-cutting ceremony observed when a Jewish boy turns three, and thus formally begins his Torah education. I spent weeks prepping and planning, made my very first fondant cake and other desserts which I froze in advance. I lined up a caterer, entertainment, got us all in coordinating outfits and booked the photographer. Alas, the big day arrived (which we celebrated this week), and thankfully it all worked out beautifully. We chopped off my son’s beautiful blond curls, sharing and celebrating with friends and family.

Now that the upshernish is behind us, I woke up this morning thinking, OK, now let me just take a breather. But then I opened my calendar and saw all the trillions of things I had lined up (many of which I had pushed off because I was too busy planning the party) …and I realized…life is not going to get any less hectic. This is it. I’ve got five kids. I’ve got recipes to test. Demos to work on. Articles to write. Shopping and homework and Dr.’s appointments and PTA and laundry and diapers to change and babies to feed…..and…….and……yes. I’ve got so much. I’ve got so much.

So instead of fighting my hectic schedule, I’ve decided to embrace it. And instead of wishing for a break, I’m going to find little tidbits of calm amid the chaos. Small moments to savor a hot cup of coffee, and to realize that breastfeeding is not a chore, but a time to bond with my adorable baby and dinner with friends is not just another thing to do on my calendar, but a time to take a break and actually enjoy the moment!

Today is hectic. And tomorrow will be too. But I am forever thankful for it. Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ve been trying to clean up my diet the past couple of weeks (so I could fit into my dress for the upshernish!) and whenever I’m looking to debloat, I try and go Paleo (or Whole30!). The natural, unprocessed food really helps me get back to a healthy way of life and just makes me feel better. These amazing grain-free chocolate muffins have literally saved me on mornings when I am desperate for a little something to eat with my date-sweetened, coconut-milk coffee. They’re so rich and fudgy that my kids actually think of them as a special treat, instead of a healthy one!

If you’re interested in learning more about the Paleo diet or reading about my 30-Day Meal Plan, visit this page!

Paleo Chocolate Muffins
adapted from Jewhungry

1 medium ripe banana, peeled
1 large egg
heaping 1/2 cup creamy almond butter
3 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
pinch of salt, optional (use if your almond butter is unsalted)
1/3 cup chocolate chunks
1/4 cup chopped pecans

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin tins with cooking spray and set aside.

Add all the ingredients besides for the chocolate chips and pecans to a blender and process until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl, as needed. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Fill the muffin tins 3/4 full with batter and top with pecans. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely before serving.

Yield: 6-8 muffins. (I always double the recipe!)

TIP: These muffins are best served after they have set for a few hours, or overnight, when they turn rich and fudgy.

NOTE: These muffins freeze great so make a triple batch, wrap them individually and save for a hectic morning!

hazelnut chocolate chip almond butter cookies
chocolate ganache tart with macaroon tart

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