Alpha Bakers -- (Chocolate) Almond Babka

There's nothing more satisfying than bread in a bundt. Unless it's a babka. And I dispute whether this is a babka. It's a great filled brioche, but Rose's babka recipe is not exactly my idea of the real thing. I'm loyal to the richer and sweeter charms of the Zabars-style stuff, a stickier, more tightly rolled and almost underbaked masterpiece that might not charm Paul Hollywood but tastes like the Jewish best to me.

Name disputes aside, this is a simple enriched dough rolled around a filling (I made it at Thanksgiving with a chocolate almond, and last week with an almond-only (sorry George Costanza)), and baked in a bundt pan.

The dough is an easy process of starter ferment, rise, chill, and fill. In a warm kitchen on a March sick day, it came together with no trouble, and the almond filling, which contains almond paste, was delicious. My co-workers did not question the name, they just ate it. Fast.

My party guests the weekend after Thanksgiving didn't eat quite as voraciously, partly because there was a lot of other food, and so I tried making bread pudding out of the leftovers. I don't recommend that plan, as the soft bread was too weak to stand up to the custard mixture and didn't provide a satisfying finish. Now I want to make a babka.

Alpha Bakers -- Rose Red Velvet

I have a complicated relationship with Red Velvet cake. I don't get the hype, but I love gratuitous food coloring, and I never turn down cream cheese frosting (or whipped cream, which is this recipe's garnish of choice. Red Velvet and I have agreed to disagree, and I usually just enjoy the fact that I get to make such a recognizably pleasing cake that holds a special place in many other people's hearts. In this case, the Rose Red Velvet as written takes the concept of RED to a bigger, better place. 

First of all, bundt pans are amazing. Second, NordicWare makes some bundt pans that really impress, and usually all I have to do is pull a cake out of my Heritage bundt (or, in Rose's cake, their rose bundt) and people think I'm a baking genius. 

In this case, however, the baking genius bought some crappy off-brand baking spray at Pathmark and the results were...unimpressive. 

I don't do cake pops, so folks at work were forced to be unimpressed with a container full of scraps. They were dutifully underwhelmed. I did do another run, though, with some modifications (ran short on baking powder, glazed with the reduced syrup of Trader Joes' cherries), and the look was much finer.  The texture didn't suffer too much from the low baking powder addition (and can we talk about the fact that I ran through a container of baking powder in about two months), but I also ran low on food coloring so I couldn't get that glaring artificial red. Consider this the entirely artificial organic beet juice look. Next week's cake is called the 'Double Damage Oblivion.' I'm sure it's a spare little cupcake.