Use whatever fruit you like in these “blueberry slices”. The sweet cinnamon-spiced topping forms a delicious crust over the fruit, to create a fabulous cake or dessert.

Somewhat inevitably, I have an ever-growing collection of Jewish cookery books. Some I use frequently, like my wonderful and well-worn Evelyn Rose. Others I dip into from time to time, like Olive Trees and Honey, which is a lovely collection of traditional Jewish vegetarian recipes.

A stack of about a dozen Jewish cookery books, including some by Evelyn Rose, Florence Greenberg, and Gil Marks.

On this page...

Old but good

The one I’ve had the longest (it was a Bat Mitzvah present when I was 12 years old) is Carr and Oberman’s Gourmet’s Guide to Jewish Cooking. It contains roughly equal parts traditional Jewish recipes – chopped liver, chicken soup etc. – and food that presumably was fashionable when the book was first published, sometime in the early 1970s.

Many of the recipes in this latter category are pretty horrendous sounding by today’s standards – avocado soup? Sweet and sour giblets? Lung and liver pie? The over-saturated colour illustrations don’t help much, either.

Example illustrations from Carr and Oberman's book "Gourmet's Guide to Jewish Cooking".

Family favourite

BUT, and it’s a big BUT, there is one recipe in this book that takes me back to my childhood in an instant. Cherry slices. It was a frequent dessert on our Friday night dinner table, although I can’t recall a single instance when my Mum made it with cherries. Usually it was apple, and occasionally (this was the 1980s remember) tinned apricots. Delicious!

A wedge of blueberry slice, on a plate. A newspaper with crossword and sudoku is behind.

Happy memories

A few weeks ago we were visiting my parents, and I mentioned my memory of cherry slices to my Mum. Of course we had to make it! We used stewed apple in the filling, and the consensus was that

a) it was still delicious, and
b) the ratio of ‘bottom’ to ‘topping’ needed adjusting.

Tweaks and adjustments

Below you will find my subsequently fine-tuned recipe. The original recipe has been converted into metric units, and I tweaked the proportions of cakey bottom, fruity filling and crumbly topping. I still haven’t made this with cherries though!

I used blueberries and made delicious blueberry slices, but you can substitute any fruit you like. Given our nostalgia for my Mum’s version, I might have a go with tinned apricots next, just for old times’ sake.

Cake or pudding?

We had our blueberry slices warm, with ice-cream, as a pudding, and they were delicious. The cinnamon-sugar topping forms a sweet, brittle crust over the fruit, which cracks and crumbles under the pressure of your spoon. Mmmm.

Once the leftovers had cooled down, I served the rest of the cake in wedges – also fabulous. Perfect with a cup of tea while browsing an old recipe book…

Use whatever fruit you like in these blueberry slices. A cinnamon-sugary topping forms a sweet crust over the fruit, to create a wonderful cake or pudding.

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