These are my babkas, or paskas, is what my grandmother would call them.
My grandma grew up in communist Russia, where it was illegal to celebrate Easter. My grandma, Wiktoria Lujakyczykow, told me that only old ladies went to church. At her house they never celebrated anything, for fear they would be found out. As a result traditions were lost. My Grandma's faith was never cultivated.
When the Germans invaded Russia they took my Grandma from her home and sent her to a work camp. I'm a little fuzzy on the details but there she met my Grandpa, a Pole, and soon they were married and had my dad. They then went to a refugee camp in Italy, then they moved to England, and finally they came to America to join my Grandpa's cousins.
My Grandma has a recipe for babka, that she got from a friend. I don't know where she got it from. And that recipe calls for egg yolks. I was feeling cheap and didn't want to commit that many egg yolks to a recipe.
I was also very tired. I knew we had to have babka, so I threw the ingredients into a bread maker, and hoped for the best. Resolving, if I had time, to make it the long way also. So I made two babkas. The one on the right was made in the bread maker, the one on the left made per my grandma's instructions, but with whole eggs.
The results, they taste the same and to me are indistinguishable from my grandmas so I call that a win.
