This year, I followed my bubka bliss and tried the Marcy Goldman recipe Rose posted:

(It looks a little burned in the pic but really isn’t—it’s just the lighting.)  I found the recipe made enough dough for three 9” x 5” x 3” pans, so two got almond-cinnamon filling and this one got cheese filling (to accommodate my niece’s nut allergy).

And here are the tropical fruit cheesecakes I made:

For the glaze, I usually mix a cup of fruit juice with a tablespoon each of sugar and cornstarch, and boil it till thick (it helps hold the fruit in place).  For the bigger cake, though, I had run out of fruit juice, so I melted some orange marmalade and ran it through a strainer to make the glaze. 

The absolute best cheesecake toppings, in my opinion, are Rose’s Dark Chocolate Ganache and Lemon Curd recipes (both in The Cake Bible).  I made a lemon-topped cheesecake and a ganache-topped marble one for a church dinner, and people are still raving about them!  (Oh, and they do a dandy job filling in any cracks that may form in the cheesecake!)

Your bubka looks divine!  I have to try this soon.

The flavor and texture were quite good, but, like another poster here, I had to cover the loaves with foil and put them back into the oven at a lower heat so they wouldn’t be doughy in the middle.  Also, like Rose’s, my slices did have gaps in them.  Next time I’m going to try rolling them up differently to see if I can make the loaves more “solid.”

Matthew, the perfect loaf in your avatar reminds me of the bread I made for Christmas dinner this past year.  The loaves turned out so perfectly formed that I was afraid they didn’t look homemade, but everybody loved them anyway!

Fantastic photos!  The bubka is is making me hungry .