Babka

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Ohhh I wanted the Great British Bake Off to go on for at least another few weeks, it finished too quickly! It was so much fun watching all the wonderful bakes. I have been trying to find some interesting dishes from different countries to try new techniques , textures and combinations. One that I recently saw on Smittenkitchen’s glorious blog is that of Babka- an Eastern European bread. I made it in a cupcake tin for individual portions as on her blog, and they were fantastic!

What you need for this yummy chocolatey goodness is….

For the dough:
120 ml milk
50 g granulated sugar
5 g active dried yeast
1 egg at room temperature
250 g of plain flour
½ tsp salt
45 g unsalted butter
to coat- 1 egg and 2 tsp milk lightly beaten

For the filling:
45 g unsalted butter
50 g granulated sugar
225 g plain chocolate
pinch salt
3/4th cinnamon powder

  1. This recipe makes 12 babkas in a muffin tray. For the dough, warm the milk, it should not be hot and add a pinch of sugar. Sprinkle yeast over the milk, stir and let it sit till the mixture is frothy.
  2. Whisk the egg with sugar and then whisk the yeast mixture into it.
  3. Mix flour and salt together.
  4. Using a hand mixer, add the yeast mix into the flour and mix till combined.
  5. Add the butter to the dough and mix till combined.
  6. The dough is now really sticky and not the easiest thing to work with, but knead it for 10 minutes till it is stringy. A dough scraper will help kneading it. Grease a bowl with butter and put the dough in it. Cover with a cling film and leave the dough to rise for an hour in a warm place.
  7. Meanwhile, for the filling, chop the chocolate into small places then mix everything for the filling and pulse it in a food processor till it looks like granules. If you are not using the food processor, just chop the chocolate very finely into small pieces and mix all the other filling ingredients together.
  8. When the dough is double , knead it to deflate and rest for another 5 minutes.  Then roll it out on a floured surface, about 12” by 20”.
  9. Spread the filling onto the rolled out dough. Now tightly roll it from the narrow end of the rolled out dough, it makes about a 13” long log. Cut into 1 inch pieces with a sharp knife, put the swirls into the greased muffin tin.

    Cut 1″ slices of the babka

  10. Cover the tin and leave for ½ hour. 
  11. Egg wash the tops of the swirls with whisked egg and milk mix and bake in a preheated oven at  180 ˚C for 15 minutes till the babkas are golden brown.
  12. Leave the buns to cool on a wire rack.
  13. Store in airtight container.

Baked babkas is cupcake tin

Lovely with a cup of tea!!

I would love to hear about the post or if you try this recipe so do leave your comments.

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