Please help ID this bread!
I hope this forum is OK to ask for help with this!
My friend and I are trying to identify a kind of bread that her grandmother (who's since passed on) used to make. We don't even know the real/exact name for it, which has made searching for it online difficult and fruitless. :(
This is how she describes it: "It's pronounced row-jack, or something like that. It's basically a bread dough that you make up (faintly sweet) and then you flatten it out, cover it with jam, fruit, cinnamon raisin, etc., roll it up into rolls, put in bread pans, and bake."
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Her grandmother was of Polish/Russian/Jewish descent, but it's possible the bread has nothing to do with any of those cultures.
Thanks in advance for your help. :-)
Jen
it's familiar to hungarian Plum Dumplings http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Silvash_Gombotz
Sounds to me like a basic brioche made into a loaf. The possibilities (and names) are endless. I wouldn't break my head about it and just look for a dough that she likes and handle it in a similar fashion. Your friend could use her own creativity and make it her own inspired by her Grandmother.
Is the dough cut or scored to expose the fruity spiced insides or does that happen when the loaves are sliced? Is it a fluffy type crumb or a more compact one just holding the filling together? Is the loaf tall or short?
Yeah, I suggested the same thing myself -- to simply make a sweet yeast bread and fill/bake it the way she describes, but she says that the texture is pretty specific (to her), so I wanted to first ask around and see if this was something others would recognize right away. It doesn't seem that that's the case, so experimentation is the next step! Of course, it is something from her childhood, which does funny things to our sense memories, so she may never make one that tastes just like it.
As for your specific questions, I'll have to let her answer them, as I don't know!
Yes, given the answers, and my inability to find the proper recipe with some searching, leads me to believe my grandmother's mom, who was full blooded Czech, probably just made up the recipe - calling it "Rozek," as someone else helpfully supplied below! - and then passed it down.
Basically, it was a yeasty dough - not pastry-like at all; it was bread for sure, POSSIBLY brioche-like. I wish I could remember if she actually put butter in it or not. Anyway, she would roll it out somewhat flat, spread whatever filling, then roll that into a "loaf" - bake it whole in a regular sized loaf pan - and then the filling would only be visible when it was sliced, at which point it would have a roll-like appearance, with more bread than filling in the ratio. It would come out tall and firm.
I so raise an angry fist to her in heaven for never having written it down.
I agree with Mini. It sounds like a bread made with sweet dough and some kind of filling. As with any dish, there're as many recipes for each dish as cooks/chefs who makes it. Your friend's grandmother's recipe could've have been just one of them.
If you google with 'Polish sweet bread' or 'Russian sweet bread,' you'll find a lot of recipes for that, and they are all different. I'd just stab in the dark and choose the one I think is the closest to her grandmother's one and see how different/similar it is, and tweak the recipe according to that experience. Your friend is the only one who can judge if that's right or not, because what she wants to re-create is the unique one made by her grandmother.
One thing, though, is that there are sweet dough with egg and without. If your friend remembers how the colour of the crumb was like (had hint of yellow=with egg, like brioche dough, or white/pale=without egg, like Japanese generic white dough which is 'faintly sweet'). I think that's the only thing you'd have to keep in mind at this moment, and just try the one you find.
FYI, this is King Arthur's version of Polish sweet bread. Thought they were a quite reliable source to start with. ;)
Yeah it's sounding more and more like it was just something her grandmother made on her own and gave a Polish name to. I had to ask the community though, on the off chance that it was actually something easily recognizable!
Great idea re: color and what not. I agree that she's the only one who can ultimately make the call on what's right... hopefully all the great Qs here will spark some more memories about it!
It could be rugelach, if by "roll it up into rolls, put in bread pans" you mean "slice it into rolls and put the rolls on a sheet pan", as one does for cinnamon rolls.
That's the only thing that comes to mind that fits your description and also sounds somewhat like row-jack.
Here's an audio clip of the proper pronunciation: http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=rugelach
You often see it sold as "Polish Rugelach", even though its origin is Ashkenazi Jew.
If it's a "loaf of bread", then it's not rugelach–unless her grandmother baked it as one big loaf, as if it were cinnamon swirl bread.
If you're in Seattle, you can sometimes find it at Costco in the bakery section. It's not very good rugelach, but it's a fair approximation. There was a Jewish bakery in Kirkland that sold it too, but I think it's closed now. The Essential Baking Company used to make it around the holidays. Give them a call and see if they still do.
The best recipe I've found for it is in Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery. If I recall, she uses laminated dough (Danish pastry dough), which is not something an inexperienced baker would want to attempt! Trust me on that one.
It's not uncommon to see them shaped like croissant (rolled triangles). In that case, this is the technique:
Those all look excellent! I don't make a lot of sweets but these are beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
Eric
I just grabbed a bunch of pictures of rugelach off of Flickr.
Thanks! We actually love rugelach, so I know that's not it.
She's definitely talking about a yeast bread.
From my polish friend.
It sounds like Polish word: rozek (rożek), which is the equivalent to “little croissant”.
Jacek
Oooh good clue!!
It sounds more and more like it was some kind of random bread she made and just called it what she wanted, lol.
Direct translation of rozek is little horn(s). He says it was more of a slang that polish people used.
Potica doesn't sound even vaguely like row-jack, but it's Polish and rolled up and is a loaf and has raisins and cinnamon.
Bobka also doesn't sound like row-jack, but is similar in description.
there's a Russian thing called rulet - pronounced as "roulette" (and the word itself is I think of French origin). It's basically the Russian word for roll. There isn't one recipe for it, in fact a rulet is a rather generic name for dough, filled with a savoury or sweet filling, rolled up and baked. For a sweet rulet, fillings can include jam, fruit - usually tangy, like sour cherries or raspberries, raisins and nuts, poppy seed, prunes and nuts... It's not always made of dough either, it could be sponge, short crust pastry or even meringue. I'd say dough and sponge are probably the most common ones.
I have had something similar to what you describe that I bought from a Byzantine Catholic Church fundraiser before Easter one year. I think is it Makowiec Poppy Seed Roll (as it's called in Poland). There is a thread here on TFL about it: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/makowiec
Hope that helps.
Thanks for the try! The idea is similar - but there is no glaze on the one I'm trying to match, and the bread is not nearly as long.
However, my grandmother WAS Catholic, so this is likely why so many similar breads are popping up in that way! I honestly think everyone's inklings are correct and she just made it up - her own variation on a lot of other Polish type breads, and I'm gonna have to bastardize one of the bread recipes and go on my own. Maybe this one you've just given me!
Rozky is the correct spelling. It is Slovak. Enjoy!