Week Eight: A Cake for Eight Nights (All the Cusswords x 2)

FYI - I started writing this really sweet, emotional post Friday night, during Part One of the cake preparation ... before it fell all to hell, resulting in an over-the-top display of emotion, screaming, all the cusswords x 2 and not allowing the cake out of the house. Bear with me on this. 

Happy Hannukah! It's day five of the Festival of Lights and I'm 18 hours into my most challenging cake to date. It's a riff on the traditional Hannukah dish, sufganiyot or jelly-filled donuts.

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Obviously raising a little donut lover -- at Duck Donuts

I found this recipe in the same "15 Unusual Cakes You Should Make Right Now" listicle from Buzzfeed (this weird post brought us last week's Tomato Soup Cake, too) when I started considering this ten-week adventure. It appealed to me right away, because I'm always looking to expand my cultural and culinary horizons; I've been making my previous boss, a Brooklyn Jew with the world's largest sweet tooth, traditional NY/Jewish/holiday treats for years; and because donuts.

These fairly shallow reasons were enough to convince me to bake this overgrown donut cake; this was actually the first cake I knew I would include in my ten week challenge. This week I really got to thinking about the purpose of this challenge and what it's meant to me so far. I was thinking about the meaning of Hannukah and realized this cake, and how I intend to share it, was really important and true to the Jewish tradition.

In 168 B.C.E. the Syrian-Greek soldiers overtook the Jewish Temple. The following year, they prohibited the practice of Judaism, began executing resisters, and stealing traditional homeland. The resistance continued to grow, becoming a group called the Maccabees. They successfully reclaimed their homeland and eventually the Temple. Greek occupiers defiled the Temple, by practicing religious acts to their foreign gods and sacrificing swine on sacred ground. The Maccabees were determined to purify their sanctuary and intended to burn ritual oil in the Temple's menorah for eight solid days. However, they only had enough oil to last a single night. But by a miracle of God, the oil lasted night after night after night until the eight nights of purification were completed. Each year, Jews across the world celebrate the miracle of God's protection, generosity, and power, by lighting menorah candles for eight nights.

Eating fried food is an almost universal tradition during Hannukah. The foods, fried in oil, are a delicious symbol of the lasting menorah oil. The global relationship of food and faith is beautiful and especially tasty.

I decided almost 2 months ago that I wanted to make this cake, and here we are at Hannukah and the perfect occasion arose. We belong to an adorable, wonderful and totally unique church in our hometown. It's a non-denominational, contemporary church that started in 2005. The Summit was the first church of its kind in a heavily traditional, rural part of the Bible Belt, which did not go unnoticed. 

We wear jeans to worship; we are music-heavy with loud, contemporary songs played by (STELLAR) musicians whose secular band has frequent gigs at bars, clubs and casinos; children dance in the aisles; and until recently, a largely un-churched congregation.

 

HIT PLAY! #SoundOn Who wouldn't love a church

 with tiny costumed conductors? 

For over a decade we've met on Sundays at an area school gym, which means every Sunday morning we roll out floor mats, set up 100+ chairs, sit in them for an hour then pick them back up and re-roll the mats. All of our equipment, supplies, and tools are unpacked then repacked every single Sunday. We do own property, and this summer completed the work for a picnic shelter with bathrooms. But we refuse to take on great debt for a building; our church isn't four walls and a cross on the roof, we are the people in the seats, any seats. It's empowering to know we're not a church driven to pass the plate to pay a mortgage; but set up and break down is exhausting and we long to be able to expand our programming beyond Sunday mornings.

Twelve years ago, no one outside of our core church family thought we had enough "oil" to last one year.

Our great music (seriously, y'all, the best), casual atmosphere, and openness (to visitors, to the unsaved, to doubt) could explain one year of success; but no way we could keep the candles burning for five years.

The creative worship - like a series (complete with costumes) about faith through the decades, and lasting service to the community - like our bus parked at a college bar on Thirsty Thursday taking kids home safely,  could sustain us for five years, but without a building of our own, we certainly weren't going to last ten years. There just can't be that much oil. 

But here we are. Twelve years old. With a core of people who've been there from the beginning, families who have grown with us, and others who visited by chance and fell in love, we've lasted. The Summit isn't the suck-your-teeth, flash-in-the-pan church anymore; we're a part of the community and we're on the cusp of another great change.

This fall we called a new pastor to lead us and within the last month we signed a lease at a location where we'll have a permanent set up, our kiddos will have dedicated space to cry and play and learn about God, our Pastor and Minister of Worship will have an office instead of squatting at a local coffee shop, and we can meet any evening or time on the weekend. Praise sweet baby Jesus.

This weekend crews came together for #DemoDay and a painting party to prepare our new space for a January move. The candles were burning (maybe at both ends?) with a surplus of oil. It's really happening for us. And like the Maccabees, we don't know where we're going or how this will turn out, but it's God and the gifted oil of time, talents and love of church family members that sustains us.

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This was the time to bring a symbolic dessert to the folks working through their weekend to knock down, then rebuild and paint walls.

But I told God my plan, and y'all know how that usually turns out. It had been put on my heart to feed my friends in this beautiful way, and then life got in the way, effed it up and I said screamed a lot of unbecoming words. Jesus, fix it.

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Sigh, here we are at Week Eight. For the first time in this challenge, I'm actually counting down "WHEN WILL THIS BE OVER?!?!" instead of "ooh, what will I make next week?" 

To recap:

Week 1: Coconut Cream Poke Cake 

Week 2: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting 

Week 3: Orange Chiffon Cake with Candied Zest 

Week 4: Upside Down Banana Toffee Cake 

Week 5: Maple Bundt Cake 

Week 6: Little French Fudge Cakes 

Week 7: Tomato Soup Cake  

Week 8: Sufganiyot (Jelly Donut) Cake from Food52

I'm terrified of dry active yeast. I've always heard you need warm liquid to "wake up" your yeast - not too cold or it'll die, not too warm or it'll die. No pressure. Strike 1 for this recipe. 

Plus it needs to rise for three+ hours before chilling overnight and I couldn't start it until after Baby went to bed, therefore it was a long night of deflating bread. Strike 2 for this recipe. 

But it looked so pretty in the morning light and after it's final rising. 

And then it died a horrible death. Strike 3, 4, 5. 

Spoiler alert: my oven needs recalibrated. You're supposed to cook the two dough balls, which will become two loaves of brioche aka giant donuts, for 25-35 minutes at 400. I know my oven runs a little hot, so I try to check in early on most things I bake. 

At 13 minutes, the loaves were dark brown around the sides and bottom, but I could see raw dough at the crack on top. I couldn't stand it at 15 minutes and took them out. They were cooked, not as nicely as I'd have liked, and burnt...big time.

Commence screaming, crying, screaming, dramatic texting. Repeat for ... awhile. 

I refused to take this to share with my "Maccabees." Flat out refused. Symbolism and community and fellowship be damned. 

But J convinced me to at least make half of the filling, prepare one "donut" and force it upon him and my parents. I grumbled through the whole thing "Oh, don't eat that bite, it's too burnt" and "No, no, you don't have to finish it." 

I'm still bitter about this one (probably from that carbon taste lingering on my tongue), so I'll give you a very short-run down on the recipe (which I refuse to type out for you):

1.  It's a recipe of good intentions, but even it it worked out, it's incredibly time consuming. Unless it was a 10/10, I'd probably never make it again. 
2. The brioche (between the burnt parts) was lovely - a little sweet but so buttery and smooth. However, Aldi US has a delicious line of flavored brioche products. Buy those. F this. 
3. I've never had a jelly AND cream filled donut. Novel idea, very yummy! 
4. The butter/sugar coating on top was genius, very true to a real jelly donut and added some much needed bold sweetness. 

I still feel the same hope and mushiness for our church, but as far as this challenge is concerned: What's the Hannukah equivalent of "bah humbug?"