Tulband

What with Christmas baking, I have become somewhat nostalgic about growing up in a bakery. Well not literally, but close enough. We had an apartment above the bakery and by the time I was 10 or 11, it was help out after school. By the age of 14 I was helping with the baking itself.

This venture in baking and more adventurous cooking, has also led me to recollect about traditional pastries and cakes that my father made every year for special events like Christmas. One of these was a very light type of fruitcake, baked in a bundt pan. I could not for the life of me remember what it was called. I seemed to remember " moskovisch" being part of the name. Doing some research I came to realize that Tulband is what I remembered. I did find a recipe, but not among my dad's old recipe books, but on line from someone who found the recipe in a very old cookbook from the 1950s. That would fit in that our bakery was opened in 1954. It was often referred to as Moskovisch Tulband that  being a reference to what may have been a Russian source for the original.

I followed the recipe and while good, its not quite the texture or flavour I remember. It asked for 3 eggs separated, with the whites beaten to stiff peaks. The yolks were just to be mixed with sugar. Then a little bit of flour with some butter mixed in, and raisins and peel, all folded in together. I baked it in my dad's old tulband pans and even used to little one to form the top.

The result is tasty but not quite as I remember. Less airy and not quite as much of a zing in taste.  While going through the recipe, it seemed to me that the yolks should have been beaten till light and airy as well, and that it needed some grated lemon or orange rind for flavour. Will do that next time when I experiment with my own version of the recipe. maybe I will even find my dad's.