Birthday Babka

Other than my profile picture, this is the first picture of myself I've posted on this site. When I found it the other day, I felt it was appropriate to post. It's from my birthday last year (2008), so it's me and my unusual birthday cake.

I initially had my heart set on having a chocolate bundt cake for my birthday, a specific one I that saw in the window of La Guli in Astoria. A few days before my birthday, I went in to ask about ordering one, and the woman working there said, "Oh, you mean the sour cream loaf?"

It's funny how the same cake described in different words can make you change you mind about it completely. No. I did not want a "sour cream loaf." I wanted chocolate bundt cake. The bakery-cafe where I worked in college, Sweet Tooth (update December 2012: Sweet Tooth of Buffalo has since closed), has the best Triple Chocolate Espresso Ring bundt cake, dense lush cake with a thin drizzle of chocolate ganache on top and flecks of espresso beans. That's what I was really craving. (The official description is: "Our moist rich chocolate cake ring with a hint of espresso, ganache glazed and garnished with chocolate mocha beans." Really, it's divine.)

Since I couldn't get the cake I really wanted, I decided to wing it. Boyfriend and I were headed to Long Island to celebrate my birthday at my mom's house over dinner, and there's a bagel shop with a lot of bakery items where I decided to look for something.

Maybe it was the ring shape, maybe it was the thought that I could eat it again for breakfast, but what we ended up with was chocolate babka, though it was more like a puffed crumb coffee cake with chocolate.