When I was growing up in Montreal, the cake my brothers, cousins, and I ate on our birthdays was known in our family as “Bobbe Masha” cake, so named for our grandmother, who bought it for us. It was a two-layer, mocha-hazelnut-chocolate delight baked by a Holocaust refugee named Mrs. Gaon.
Mrs. Gaon had started baking as a means to put food on her own table. Mr. Gaon was too sick after the war to hold a steady job, so Mrs. Gaon, who had been raised in a wealthy Jewish home in Hungary, turned to the one money-making skill she possessed that allowed her to care for her husband at home: recreating the gorgeous desserts—dobos tortes, apple strudels, and our family’s favorite cake—that she had learned to make as a child, watching the cooks employed by her family.
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