FOR ALL HER long life, Baba Schwartz baked two yeast cakes every Friday: one laced with chocolate and nuts, the other with poppyseeds and apricot jam. She was a stellar baker. Home – in Hungary, rural Victoria or Melbourne – was the smell of her Sabbath cakes baking.

In Sydney, Eva Grinston baked her grandmother’s favourite, a flourless chocolate, walnut and sour cherry cake, for the birthday of every child and, later, grandchild. This Slovakian specialty sat on the table along with fairy bread and chocolate crackles and now no family celebration is complete without it.