White Chocolate & Pistachio Babka

Just in time for the weekend something nice and sweet again. And since I just can't get enough of Babkas, here's another variation of this Jewish delicacy.

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

Difficulty: easy

Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

1 Loaf pan, mine is roughly 30x15cm

Dough

15g yeast

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

65g sugar

500g wheat flour

5g salt

Pinch of vanilla

90g warm butter alternative

Filling

75g butter alternative

175g white chocolate

25g powdered sugar

100g ground pistachios

50g pistachio syrup (optional)

Syrup

75g water

75g sugar

Preparation:

First of all, of course, the yeast is dissolved in warm, not hot, "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, "butter", salt and a little vanilla are added and kneaded into a dough. If you don't have vanilla, just take a little less sugar and add vanilla sugar.

Then you knead until 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 form 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.

After about 45 minutes I already made the filling so that it could be a little firmer in the refrigerator and the dough could be rolled up more easily later. To do this, the butter laternative is melted with the white chocolate using the lowest possible heat. Then the ground pistachios and powdered sugar are stirred in. Ground pistachios are often cheaper than whole, so it's definitely worth looking around. For a more intense pistachio flavor, I also mixed in a syrup, but that's optional.

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.

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. Then press the ends of the other side firmly together at the end.

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

Then you bake the babka for 55-60 minutes. After about 50 minutes I smeared some (soy) milk on the babka and sprinkled a few chopped pistachios on it, but this step is optional.

Towards the end of the baking time, you still cook the syrup. To do this, you simply mix the water with the sugar and boil everything once.

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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