Bake it untill you make it

This weeks blogger Ella (student Gastronomic Science) shares one of her favorite recipes.

Hey! Hope you are all doing well, staying sane, taking this time to reflect, to stay optimistic, enjoy quality time with yourself, do some fun activities in the house, use your creativity, help each other and what not more… A quarantine can actually be quite good for some time.

And where I, Ella, keep myself busy with, besides studying Gastronomic Science, is cooking and baking for my family.

A much quieter life out of a sudden. Under normal circumstances, whenever I found free time I would daily bake something new for my friends. I prefer not to make the same recipe twice, but for this one I prepared for you, I had to make an exception. That is how good it is! It is fun to make, looks good, and is most importantly tasty! During these long days in the house, we can keep ourselves busy with many things, so why not find a new hobby or just try out some recipes? This is the perfect time to get to know ourselves better. So, as one finds relaxation in meditation, the other in sports, I hope that you, just like me, can find some of that in baking.  

The original babka is from Jewish origin and is a sweet brioche bread. All types of ingredients can be used to fill the dough. But for me, chocolate never be topped! Together with the pistachios and raspberry it gives some freshness and crispiness to the bread.

P.S.: Do not forget to also take the importance in buying good quality ingredients! This will make its taste even better and your contribution to a better planet! In the end, if there is already so much effort in producing these ingredients, why not do them justice?

Ingredients for 2 loafs

Dough:

  • Milk, lukewarm 175 gr.
  • Yeast 10 gr
  • Flour 530 gr
  • Sugar 100 gr
  • Eggs 3
  • Butter, room temp 150 gr
  • Pinch of salt

Filling:

  • Chocolate 150 gr
  • Cacao powder 30 gr
  • Butter 120 gr
  • Powdered sugar 60 gr
  • Toasted coarsely cut pistachio 80 gr
  • Fresh raspberries 125 gr
  • Nutmeg 1/8 tsp

Simple syrup:

  • Sugar 130 gr
  • Water 110 gr

        Instructions

        Dough:

        • Make sure that your milk is lukewarm and sprinkle the yeast onto it. Mix it and let it sit until it becomes foamy, this will take around 10 minutes.
          • Start to mix together the flour, sugar and salt.
        • Slowly add into that the eggs, one at the time and mixing well in-between. Followed by the yeast mixture.
          • Make sure to mix this dough with a hand mixer, by hand or stand mixer until it forms a rough dough.
        • Start when you reached that stage, to add the butter, slowly one tablespoon at the time.
          • Continue to mix for 10 minutes, until a homogenous and smooth dough is created.
        • Transfer the dough into a greased bowl and place it in the fridge for at least 8 hours, preferably overnight.

        Filling:

        • Add all ingredients except for the nutmeg into a saucepan on low/medium heat until melted. Makes sure to stir well. Once everything is mixed well with no lumps and fully melted, add some freshly grated nutmeg to taste. I prefer around 1/8 of a tsp.
          • Once the dough has been taken out of the fridge, you can cut it in 2 and put one of the pieces back in the fridge while preparing the other one (the colder the dough the better).
        • Make sure to create enough space on your counter to roll out the dough into a square which is around 1,5 cm thick.
          • Now spread half of the filling on the dough in an even layer. Sprinkle over half of the pistachios and raspberries.
        • Once done that, you start rolling up the square of dough, taking the dough from its length side and start rolling it up as tight as you can. After it is rolled up, straighten it and even it where needed.
          • Take a serrated knife and cut length wise into the dough. What I find useful is to not do that in one cut, but take your time to with care cut it in two.
        • Once you then have two pieces of the roll, Pinch of both one end together and then twist them around each other
          • Take the twisted dough and put in a prepared loaf pan buttered and floured, so it won’t stick. Or: what I did in this case with one of them, is I made a circle out of it and put it in a normal cake pan.
        • Repeat this process with the second loaf. And when both are ready in their pans, cover them with a clean towel and let them rest for at least another 2 hours at room temperature.
          • Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.
        • When preheated, place the loafs in the oven until golden brown. Which takes around 30 minutes, depending on your oven and the size of the babka’s.

        Simple syrup:

        • Cook the sugar and water together until boiling and smear the babka’s freshly from the oven with this mixture. 

        Do you have a unique, fun or exciting hobby you would like to share with us and the rest of the WUR community? Send an e-mail to online.events@wur.nl with a short story and some photos and maybe you will be featured on this page!