Grandpa's
Babka
I spent a decent part of my life “not liking” babka. I was one of those children who would claim something was gross without ever having tried it. To this day I am still discovering foods that I never actually tried but placed in the “ew” category from an early age that are actually awesome.
This babka is the recipe that my grandfather used. Its not the babka that you are probably expecting, twisted and filled with chocolate or some other sweet filling. This is old school polish babka. This is my grandfathers bread.
He died when I was pretty young so I don’t have first hand memories of his bread, but I’ve been on a mission for the last two years or so to make a babka that mimics his. Luckily, my father is more than willing to test as many babkas as I need him to in the search for perfection.
The first time I made this bread it was pretty dense. It was delicious, don’t get me wrong, but it was heartier than it was supposed to be. It didn’t rise to the heights that it should have. It missed that “light, tear apart, airy” texture that was my grandfather bread. I had a recipe in front of me, but it was missing those personal touches that makes a good recipe great.
The first discovery I made was by accident. I missed the part of the recipe where it told you to hold back part of the sugar to dust the pan with before baking, I just put the full amount in the dough for the first few loaves without realizing. My family doesn’t dust the pan with sugar. My grandfather never dusted the pan with sugar. Yet his notes called for the full amount of sugar to be put into the dough. It turns out my grandfather made that same mistake. Others in my family have tried the recipe and it wasn’t quite right. And maybe thats why. They followed the recipe. And that was the problem.
The texture came from experience. The bread needed an extra rise that the recipe did not call for. It needed you to build more strength with additional kneading. It needed a longer final proof. It needed to be tried again and again until you earned that perfect loaf.
And while I can’t present my grandpa with a loaf of bread and ask him “Is this it? Did I get it right?”. I’d like to think I’ve come pretty close.
What you’ll need:
Oven – heated to 400f
Loaf or cake pan – buttered
(for braided loaf, baking sheet with parchment)
AP Flour – 700g
Milk – 250g (use whole or 2%, do not use fat free)
Water – 125g
Eggs – 150g (about 3 large eggs)
Butter – 113g, cubed (one stick or half a cup)
Granulated Sugar – 90g
Salt – 13g
Yeast – 7g
OR
Sourdough Levain – 287g
Egg Wash – 1 egg + 1tbsp water
Raisins – (optional)
What you’ll do:
– Heat milk in a small sauce pan over a low heat until it begins to steam and bubbles form along the edge (you don’t want a skin to form, if you see it beginning to, you’re still good, just don’t heat it any further)
– Add the butter to the milk. The heat from the milk will melt the butter.
– Add the sugar to the sugar and water to the milk/butter mixture and mix. Set aside until the temperature is between 105 – 115f (if its too hot it will kill the yeast)
– While the milk mixture it cooling, Measure out the flour and salt in a separate large bowl, mix to combine
– Once the milk has cooled enough, add the yeast, mix it up a bit, and let it sit for 5 – 10 minutes until you see the yeast “bloom”
– If using sourdough instead of yeast, add the starter to the mixture and immediately move on to the next step, there is no need to wait with this method
– Whisk the eggs into the milk mixture and pour over the flour. Mix and fold in the liquids until well combined (I like to use the handle of a wooden spoon for this)
– Cover and let sit for about 10 minutes.
– Pour the dough onto a damp counter and knead via the “slap and fold” method. It will be super sticky, it will be messy, but it will be 100% worth it and a little cathartic at the same time. Follow this method until the surface starts to take on a smooth appearance and the bulk of the dough holds together as a cohesive mass. This should take about 5-10 minutes, if you’re unsure if its ready, thats okay, as long as you’ve got at least 5 minutes in you will be fine. We are just trying to build up strength, but this is a really forgiving dough.
– Alternatively you can use a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, set mixer to a low speed (1-2) and let it do its thing for about 10 minutes.
Scrape all the dough together in as smooth of a ball as you can, place it back into the mixing bowl, and cover.
