Side Trip to the Apple Pie Bakery Cafe

On a recent escape this dreary season, we headed up the Hudson River Valley to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. (We went to use their wonderful library.)  An informative display of antique marzipan molds in Roth Hall was an unexpected treat.

Antique marzipan molds on display at the CIA in Hyde Park, NY.

Their Apple Pie Bakery Café is an ideal place for a lunch and an even batter place to buy bread and pastries. We brought home these sophisticated Danish, the kind of buttery creations you rarely see or taste anymore.

Laminated dough pastries at the CIA in Hyde Park, NY

Citrus Danish pasrty

HERITAGE RECIPE – Poppy Seed Sweet Bread

Fans of poppy seed filled breads come out in force during the holiday baking season.  We get rush orders for people making Opa’s poppy seed rolls or grandma’s kolaches. 

For those without a legacy recipe, we’ve made this tender sweet bread. The dough is soft and rolls easily into a plump loaf.  To contain the poppyseed filling, we encased it into three logs of dough.  Then we braided the dough before putting it into the pan before baking. 

Poppy Seed Sweet Bread

For the Poppy Seed Sweet Bread recipe, click here.