You can’t celebrate the holidays without a little something sweet, especially on the New Year.
Roz Bratt, owner of Homemade Goodies by Roz at 510 S. Fifth St., takes the same approach.
The bakery features a classic for the High Holidays, a Jewish apple cake.
Bratt’s apple cake recipe comes from a cookbook that she put together, but it was originally a recipe from her husband’s cousin.
Since then, the recipe has continued to be “a winner.”
“It’s our big recipe for the Jewish holidays,” she said.
In the bakery, they also make special holiday items like round challahs, but a personal favorite for Bratt is sweet and sour meatballs.
“I’m not even sure where I got that recipe from, but it’s tried and true, and people love it,” she said. “It’s super easy to make. … You just break down the cranberry sauce with the marinara, and you make your meatballs any way you make your meatballs.
“They’re sweet. Sweet and sour meatballs are sweet and delicious, and the Jewish apple cake is sweet and delicious. And sweetness is what the holiday is all about.”
Apple Cake
3 cups flour
1½ cups sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
4 eggs
1 cup oil
2½ teaspoons vanilla
½ cup orange juice
Apple mixture:
5 apples (peeled, cored, chopped)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
5 tablespoons sugar
Add all the dry ingredients into a bowl.
Add all the wet ingredients into the dry bowl. Mix until there are no lumps in the batter.
Mix together the apple mixture.
Layer batter, apples, batter, then more apples.
Bake at 350 degrees for one hour in a 10-inch tube pan or until a pick comes out clean.
Sweet and Sour Meatballs
2 lbs. ground meat
1 lb. jar marinara sauce
1 lb. can cranberry sauce (no berries)
Season the ground meat as usual. Melt the cranberry sauce in a large pot over medium heat (it will not melt completely, but it will soften somewhat).
Add the marinara sauce and meatballs. Cook for an hour and a half over medium-low heat or pressure cook for 15 minutes at 10-pound pressure. This is good to make ahead of time and freeze.
Contact: rkurland@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0737
