Gingerbread Babka with Speculoos filling

I know it's been ages since I shared a recipe with you guys. Unfortunately, the apprenticeship doesn't leave me a lot of time in the kitchen, but hopefully that will change again soon when everything is a little more settled in. Thank you guys for the continous support via PayPal and BuyMeaCoffee, you're all just amazing!

But now to something more winterly, this amazing Gingerbread Babka with a Biscoff cream filling.

Duration: approx. 5 hours (including all rest periods)

Difficulty: easy

Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

1 loaf pan (mine is around 30x15cm)

Dough

15g yeast

215g warm (soy) milk, but other plantbased alternatives such as oat should also work

65g sugar

500g wheat flour

5g salt

Pinch of vanilla

90g warm butter alternative

15g gingerbread spice

Filling

400g speculoos cream (like the one from Biscoff)

Syrup

65g water

65g sugar

Pinch of cinnamon

Preparation:

First of all, of course, the yeast is dissolved in warm, not hotter "milk" and mixed with the sugar so that the yeast has a little food to metabolize. I just put the "milk" in the microwave for a short time, if you heat it on the stove, make sure that it is not too hot, otherwise it could kill the yeast. Then the flour, salt, gingerbread spice and a little vanilla are added and kneaded into a dough. If you don't have any vanilla, just take a little less sugar and add vanilla sugar.

If you can't find any gingerbread spice in your grocerystore, check out dailyvegan.de, Sean has got you covered with a delicous recipe.

Then gradually knead the "butter" into the dough until it is really well integrated and the dough is nice and smooth. When you feel like you've kneaded long enough, you can cut out a small piece of dough and pull it apart with your fingers. This should create a small gluten "window" that can be pulled so thin that you can almost look through it. If the dough cracks immediately, you have to knead a little longer. Then it is allowed to rest for 1.5 hours in a greased bowl and covered in a warm place.

Towards the end of the rest period you can prepare the filling by melting a glass of speculoos cream in a saucepan filled with water over low heat. If you can't find a speculoos cream to buy, you can also mix speculoos biscuits with a little vegan cream, a pinch of cinnamon, powdered sugar and a little butter substitute to make a delicious, sweet cream.

The dough should now have risen nicely. Roll out the dough into a rectangle about the width of your loaf pan.

The dough is then spread with your filling and then rolled up as tightly as possible.

If your filling is a bit too runny, because it completely melted, just spread out a thin layer first and let it cool and firm. Then apply another layer until the jar is empty.

The next step is theoretically optional, but I can really recommend it to you. Put your rolling pin in the refrigerator for an hour. This means that the "butter" in the dough and the filling becomes really firm again. This makes it much easier to work with in the next step.

When your rolling pin is ready, cut it lengthways and press the ends of one side together. Then you fold the dough halves over and over again, as often and as tightly as possible until you get a "braided" loaf. Finally, press the ends of the other side together firmly.

Line your loaf pan with baking paper, this will make it easier to remove the babka from it later. The dough is then allowed to rise in the baking pan for another 1.5 hours, covered, in a warm place. Towards the end of the walking time you can preheat the oven to 150°C.

Now bake your Babka for 50 minutes

Towards the end of the baking time, you can start to cook your syrup. To do this, you simply mix the water with the sugar and boil everything until the sugar dissolved completely and the mix starts to thicken up a little. You can also stir a pinch of cinnamon into the syrup at this point.

When the babka comes out of the oven, you brush it directly with the syrup.

When it is evenly brushed on, you should let the babka cool down completely. Then you can enjoy it. Guten Appetit!

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