Tart cranberries add a festive flavour to this coffee cake. Baking it in a Bundt pan gives a fluted shape to the bottom, making it a beautiful addition to a holiday brunch table.
Barbara Reiss, husband, Ed, and daughter, Pam, are the owners and operators of Desserts Plus, a popular restaurant and catering firm in Winnipeg. Here they share a favourite Rosh Hashanah dessert, which we've adapted slightly for the home kitchen. This impressive torte has the winning combination of hazelnut, chocolate and coffee and goes well with a dairy lunch or dinner.
Marina Keeping didn't need to ponder over which of her mother's recipes was her favourite: it's the layered coffee buttercream-filled cake that Janet Reeves, author of One Potato, Two Potato (Ragweed Press, 1987) always made for birthdays. It's rich and buttery, in the style of Eastern European cakes, and even a small slice is enough to satisfy. Reeves, an inveterate recipe collector since the age of eight, got this recipe when she helped out as a teenager in the home of a Polish-born doctor in her home town of Kensington, P.E.I.
Even though this sweet finish is decidedly for grown-ups, it is delicious enough to bring out the kid in you.
Studded with juicy pink rhubarb and topped with a crunchy nut streusel, this cake is perfect for spring brunch, snacktime or dessert.
