Every community seems to have its own traditional dishes with which to break the Yom Kippur fast. In my Jewish-Australian-Indian family, our post-fast feast features what we refer to using the Arabic word machbooz: a collection of baked treats including date-filled biscuits called date babas (also known as baba b’tamar), cheese-filled pastries called cheese samoosas (originally known as cheese sambusaks), and ring-shaped biscuits called kakas.
Ring-shaped pastries called kaak were introduced to India by Iraqi Jews in the 19th century. Somewhere along the way, kaak morphed into kaka. Kakas are baked year-round, but to me, they always taste best after not having eaten for 25 hours.
The trick to making kakas is to bake them until they’re golden; they should be light and a little crunchy. It takes time and some patience to roll the dough and form it into rings, but once you get the hang of it, rolling and shaping the dough can be quite soothing.
My favorite way to eat these simple biscuits is to dunk them into a cup of tea, but they’re equally good on their own. Just a warning: Kakas are incredibly more-ish. If there are any left after the fast, they don’t last longer than a day or two in my pantry.