Grandma Kania's Babka Cookbook

Create Grandma Kania's famous old-world-style Babka bread in this photo-illustrated, step-by-step cookbook.

When you're a kid, and enjoying the benefits of family traditions, you don't even think about how nice the traditions are. My grandmother, that came from Europe, made home-made babka from scratch. On the big holidays, like Easter and Christmas, she would bake this babka.

The loaves were cut and presented at dinner, and I never missed taking some. With a little butter, these slices of babka were little tastes of heaven. No store-bought Babka, or bakery-made babka ever came close. I really did not understand how addictive this bread was, until after my grandmother died, and the babka no longer appeared at the family functions.

Luckily, my older brother Walt, was a baking buff since his high-school years. He actually sat in on a couple of baking sessions with my grandmother. Of course my grandmother was a real old-school baker, a little of this, a little of that, not a whole lot of measuring, just years of experience doing the same recipe memorized by heart.

So my brother spent a few years trying to make the same recipe. The first few times were close, but not the same thing. Something was always a little off, from my grandmothers high standard babka. 

If my brother is anything, he is persistent. A few years later, after much experimentation, he came up with a recipe, that was - and dare I say it - better than Grandma Kania's babka. Sorry Grandma, but it's true.

I even tried the recipe. Although the first time I did it, I skipped the second rising of the bread somehow. When I checked the bread in the oven, there was this blimp-sized loaf about ready to fill the entire oven. I carefully closed the door and waited for the timer. When the timer went off, I opened the oven to a huge, flattened loaf that looked like a deflated air mattress. So remember, don't skip any of the steps in the recipe.

Anyway, start a bread tradition in your family. Impress your friends and bring a homemade loaf a babka to your next dinner party. Have fun.