Babka Variations

Even if sweet delicacies are not my cup of tea, we will probably have a fluffy babka more often from now on. But since I don't always want to fill the yeast dough with chocolate cream, I have two delicious variations for you here. Of course, I still make the babka dough, with all the resting times, according to this basic recipe.

Duration: approx. 5 hours (including all resting times)

Difficulty: easy

Makes: 1 loaf, either with cinnamon or with a strawberry filling

Ingredients:

Dough

15g yeast

215g warm (soy) milk, but other plant based alternatives such as oat should also work 65g sugar

500g wheat flour

5g salt

Pinch of vanilla

90g warm butter alternative

Cinnamon filling

175g butter alternative

115g powdered sugar

8g cinnamon or

Strawberry filling

225g frozen strawberries

100g sugar

10g lemon juice

25g butter alternative

25g cold water + 15g starch

Syrup

75g water

75g sugar

1 Loaf pan, mine is roughly 30x15cm

Preparation:

The dough is made exactly as in the chocolate babka recipe, to the point where you would roll it out and spread the chocolate cream over it. The strawberry filling takes a little longer, especially to cool down, with which you should start a little earlier than with the cinnamon or chocolate filling. To do this, first heat the strawberries with the lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan. When they are really nice and soft, everything is pureed once. Then you add the "butter" and the starch dissolved in water and boil everything once.

For the cinnamon cream, melt the butter alternative in a saucepan and then mix it with the powdered sugar and cinnamon. If the cinnamon cream has become too soft (like me in the picture), put it in the fridge to cool. The more liquid the cream, the more difficult it is to roll up the babka later. If necessary, give the cream a moment in the fridge to get a little firmer again.

When you have the feeling that the cream is ready, roll out your babka into a rectangle and spread the filling on it. Then the dough is rolled up as tightly as possible.

As with the chocolate babka, it is worthwhile to put the dough rolls in the refrigerator for an hour or even a little longer before processing them further.

As a result, the "butter" in the dough and also in the cream becomes really firm again and you can then more easily cut it lengthways when it is ready.

Then you press the ends together on one side and fold the two strands over and over again. When you get there, you simply press the other end together and place the babka in a loaf pan lined with baking paper.

Then the yeast plait is allowed to rise again in a warm place for 1.5 hours, covered.

Towards the end of the walking time you can preheat your oven to 150 °C and then bake the babka for 50 minutes until it has turned golden brown.

When the baking time is almost up, you can quickly make a syrup from the sugar and water. Simply put both ingredients in a saucepan and bring them to a boil until the sugar has completely dissolved.

Take your babka out of the oven and brush it with the syrup while it is still hot.

Then your babka is ready and can be enjoyed with your favorite people, regardless of whether it is filled with cinnamon, strawberry or chocolate.

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