“It’s the main thing we have at the Easter breakfast,” explains Terebova, who emigrated to the U.S. from Kyiv with her son in 2022 amid the war with Russia.
Now, she’ll share pasky, the term for many paska, with the Valley through Proof Bread. Terebova recently joined the sourdough bakery as its creative director. This Easter, she's introducing Phoenix customers to a family recipe that’s been passed down for generations.
It’s not Proof’s first effort to share pasky – although it is on this continent. In 2022, owners Amanda Abou-Eid and Jon Przybyl raised funds for friend and fellow Kyiv baker, Anna Makievska, some of which went toward making pasky donated to Ukrainians that Easter.
“We felt this Easter, bringing things sort of full circle, making paska here for this community, would be an interesting first project for Sofiia to lead up,” Przybyl says, sitting alongside Terebova at Proof’s Phoenix bakery.
‘Bakers are really well-connected’
Terebova started her bakery from her mother's kitchen at age 19. Over the years, she grew March & Co. to a brick-and-mortar location in Kyiv, where she made pastries, cakes and other desserts. By 2022, her team had grown to more than a dozen bakers.On Feb. 23, she was focused on fulfilling the day’s deliveries and two upcoming catering orders. Early the next day, “I woke up because I heard explosions in my city,” she says. After enduring four months of the war with her 6-year-old son, she decided they could not stay in Ukraine.
“I realized as a mom, I want to protect him and I want to give him normal childhood problems,” she says.
They emigrated to the U.S. and initially lived in Los Angeles, where she managed a bakery. When her mother settled in Arizona, she followed, relocating to the Valley a year ago. Terebova is admittedly picky about her food – and especially about her baked goods.
“If I can find good bread, I can survive,” she says.
She heard about Proof, and when she walked into one of its three bakeries, she was stunned to see a framed photo of Makievska standing with the Proof owners.
“I was like, ‘Wait, this is my friend from Kyiv,’” Terebova recalls.
Terebova learned about Proof's work to support Makievska’s bakery, Bakehouse, which was feeding people in Kyiv. A fundraiser led by Proof raised more than $215,000.
“Our focus really is the humanity of it all – it was then, and it is now,” Przybyl says.
Makievska, who now lives in San Francisco, formally introduced the three.
“Bakers are all really well-connected,” Przybyl says.
“All over the world,” Terebova adds.
For Easter, Proof Bread will offer paska, a traditional, cake-like bread eaten in Ukraine to mark the holiday.
Proof Bread
What is paska?
Baking, decorating and eating paska is a traditional Easter ritual in Ukraine, Terebova says, but the bread dates back before Christ, made to mark the arrival of spring. Today, Ukrainians make round loaves to share at Easter breakfast and as gifts for family and friends. The bread is often made days in advance because its texture and flavor develop over time.While a regular loaf of bread has simple ingredients – flour, water, salt and leavening – paska dough “is all just milk and eggs substituted for the water, so it’s very rich,” Przybyl says.
Paska falls somewhere between pillowy brioche and cake-like panettone. When sliced open, the bread has the blonde hue of a yellow cake. It usually has dried fruit mixed into the dough and is decorated with icing on top.
Proof’s paska dough is filled with Terebova’s favorite combination: dried cranberries and candied orange peel. The bread is topped with toasted meringue and adorned with cornflower and calendula, edible flowers that grow in Ukraine and are the blue and yellow hues of the country’s flag.
Pasky will be available for pre-order – along with hot cross buns, carrot cake croissants, ham-and-cheese croissants and massive “centerpiece” rounds of sourdough – until Sunday. Pasky will also be available at Proof’s three bakeries, in Phoenix, Mesa and Litchfield Park, and area farmers markets starting on Saturday through April 20.
“Around the holidays, we all look for these special breads,” Przybyl says. “There’s all these memories attached to it. We love making those kinds of products around the holiday, but this one’s particularly special.”
The meringue is something Terebova remembers fighting over with her two sisters as children, jockeying to get the slice with the most sweet topping. Terebova likes to top her slice with a savory combination of butter, cheese, ham and hard-boiled egg.
“All together. It’s my taste of Easter,” she says.
Terebova’s family recipe uses yeast to give the dough rise, but Przybyl says it likely evolved from a sourdough process. After lots of testing, the team settled on a version of Terebova’s paska that uses a modified version of Harriet, Proof’s sourdough starter. To do that, the team created a spinoff of the starter that’s “trained on a bit of sugar,” Przybyl says.
“We’re making a sourdough version, so really we’re making this old-world version of paska this year and it will be very unique,” he adds.
Proof Bread will offer several breads and pastries for Easter, including carrot cake croissants.
Proof Bread
As creative director, Terebova will work with Proof’s bread and pastry teams to develop new specials and formulate recipes using local grains. Not only can Terebova help share ideas on the baking side, but she also has the experience of balancing those ideas with the dollars and cents of running a business.
“I am passionate about numbers the same way I am passionate about pastries,” she says.
She’s also excited to share what she’s learned as an entrepreneur. After the war broke out, Terebova says she stopped making long-term plans. Instead, she’s trying to focus on what’s right in front of her.
“I’m just trusting God and just living my life and trying to do as best as I can,” she says. “I see that this is a place where I have to be right now and this is a place where I belong right now.”
