Apple Cinnamon Babka Bread Recipe [Step By Step] (2024)

FAQs

Why is my babka dough dry? ›

Too much flour can create a very DRY yeast bread. Now if you really need a bit of flour go for it, but use as little as possible. The dough is so silky that it rolls out beautifully and I don't get need any flour at all!

If you have too much sugar in your dough, it could gobble up almost all of the food the yeast needs, leaving you with dry, ineffective yeast. To counteract this, allow sweet doughs, like the kind used to make cinnamon rolls or babka, plenty of time to rise.

Made with sweet and buttery brioche dough, there are several, thick ribbons of cinnamon-sugar filling running through every slice. Some of that sweet mixture also pools at the bottom of the loaf, making a sticky, caramel glaze. This gorgeous bread takes some time and patience, but it's worth the effort!

Babka originated in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in the early 19^th century. Part bread, part cake, the name is thought to derive from a popular Easter cake made in Poland called “baba” which means “grandmother” in Polish.

Add Milk

To make your bread soft and fluffy, another trick used by commercial bakers is replacing water with milk. Milk has fats which make bread softer.

Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.

Roll it up: starting with the rectangle closest to you, roll it up from the bottom along the longer edge, working evenly side to side and pulling back with your fingertips to make the roulade as tight as possible. Repeat for the second rectangle. The tighter the roulade, the more layers of chocolate you'll have.

Do NOT underbake your loaves. I recommend checking them with a thermometer to make sure they're done. If you pull them out too early, the babka will sink in the middle and be doughy (it's happened to me before and it's a total bummer).

Bake the babka for about 45–55 minutes. —set your Extra Big & Loud timer for 45 minutes, and check the babka's internal temperature when the timer sounds. Use your Thermapen ONE to check the temperature, looking for a temp between 180 and 190°F (82 and 88°C).

Like many Jewish-American specialties, babka originated in Eastern Europe – Poland and Ukraine in particular – in the early 1800s. As a way to use extra challah dough, Jews there would roll up the dough with cinnamon or fruit jam and bake it alongside the challah.

What dough is babka made of? ›

Babka is a braided yeast bread or cake that originated in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. It is prepared with an enriched bread dough, like challah or brioche, that is filled with a sweet or savory filling, rolled up, twisted, and baked.

Babka is a traditional Eastern European Jewish sweet loaf. It is a yeasted cake-bread that is typically filled with chocolate or cinnamon (but the possibilities are endless).

Store your babka at room temperature in the provided packaging using the reseal tab on the back if opened; do not refrigerate. Our babkas are baked daily and, if you can resist eating them, will stay delicious for up to 5 days after purchase.

Homemade babka is best when served slightly warmed up, or at room temperature. Is brioche and babka the same? Brioche and babka are very similar. A babka is often filled with chocolate, cinnamon, or other sweet fillings and shaped into a loaf, while brioche is twisted and baked into a knot.

From there they have diverged. All have a rich, yeast-risen, tender crumb; panettone's texture is more like cotton candy with its long, airy strands that literally melt in your mouth, whereas babka and brioche tend to be a bit denser and somewhat chewier, with a high ratio of butter and eggs to flour.

You might be tempted to add more water, but before you do, let it rest. Flour doesn't fully hydrate just after mixing, but if you let the dough rest, tightly wrapped in plastic, the flour has a chance to fully absorb the moisture in the dough.

7- How do I fix crumbly gluten free cookie dough? If your cookie dough is too dry and crumbly, just add back to the mixing bowl and stir in a couple tablespoons of your favorite milk or an egg. Add more if needed – the dough needs to hold together, but most cookie doughs shouldn't be sticky.