Saturday, May 22, 2004


wanted: the real russian coffee cake

i've spent weeks now off and on searching everywhere for a recipe for the real russian coffee cake.

this is a yeast-raised, sour-cream object with spirit-macerated dried fruit and almonds, possibly walnuts as well. it appears native only to a small area of the upper west side of manhattan, west of broadway, between 72nd and 80th st.

oh, i've seen lots of fake recipes. as far as i can tell, the real russian coffee cake resides at only 3 locations: the royale kosher bakery, sometimes at fairway, and on occasion at zabar's.

i believe the authentic recipe's soul comes from that base of sour cream, boiling honey, and possibly the use of tea as part of the liquid, along with light cream. a little bird suggests that don schoenholt of gillies may have once also been a purveyor of this delight.

speaking of soul and coffee, i've been thinking about this piece, exact and particular, at left this is an audio post - click to play a lot recently, by edwin denby. i'm thinking that, along with frank o'hara and ted berrigan, he remains an absolute best descriptor of the emotional new york.

oh you gloomy, prissy e.b. white, eat your heart out. not that denby, as the piece here shows, can't be sad, but like whitman he loves the average people of new york, i think, much more than white.

certainly denby has a better understanding of the city's essential cadences. . .

what i need is to bake the perfect russian coffee cake, brew up some of gillies' yrg, and try to understand why the compression of these modern sonnets are so effectively, perfectively, noo yawk.

if you have that coffee cake recipe, send it to me please!

posted by fortune | 11:37 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments