Solozhenyk (соложеник, baked crepe custard cake)

Twelve eggs is not a mistake. It is the point, the color, the Easter boast, the reason this old sweet sits so proudly on the table after the long lean weeks and says: we are eating richly again. Thin mlyntsi, Ukrainian crepes, are fried pale and soft, stacked with tart apple or sour cherry, then soaked with smetana custard until the layers swell into one golden cake.

The fruit must have a little bite. Sweet apples make a nursery pudding; sour cherries make the eggs stand up and behave. In April we'd be drowning in dyed eggs, not cherries, so we open a jar from summer. That's not a substitute, that's the actual tradition: the litnya kuhnia, the summer kitchen, working months ahead for the Easter table.

The one thing that decides solozhenyk is restraint after all that abundance. Don't brown the crepes hard, don't drown the layers, don't cut it the moment it leaves the oven. Bake until the center trembles but no longer sloshes, then let it settle. Aunt Nadia's note says "don't be frightened by eggs," and she was right. Without them it is pancakes with fruit. With them, it is a celebration you can slice.