Cinnamon Babka

I guess I have babka on the brain!  After making the Chocolate Babka Mix last week, and loving it, I decided on a made-from-scratch Cinnamon Babka this week.  Aside from having to pull the ingredients for the dough together, making babka from scratch no more time-consuming that making it from the mix.

DOUGH

• King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• Dry Milk
• Instant yeast
• Cinnamon
• Sugar
• Salt
• Lukewarm water
• Egg
• Unsalted butter
• Vanilla extract

I also added about 1/2 tsp of King Arthur’s Sweet Buttery Dough Flavor.

The recipe calls for the first rise of the dough to be 1 1/2 -2 hours.  Mine took the full two hours on the bread proof setting in the oven.

Once the dough completes the first rise, it is rolled into a rectangle and spread with the filling.  This dough was super easy to work with.  It did not fight back at all in the rolling process.  I am a huge fan of dough that cooperates.  Lol!

FILLING

• Brown sugar
• Cinnamon
• King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• Melted unsalted butter
• water
• Diced pecans or walnuts, toasted if desired
• Golden raisins

I used pecans and did not include the raisins.  I feel like there was not quite enough filling for the bread.  I don’t think my raisin omission is the reason for that.  When I make this recipe again, I will likely double the filling recipe.  Is there really such a thing as too much brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter?

The dough is then rolled, cut in half lengthwise, and twisted into a traditional babka braid.  The braid is then placed into a greased loaf pan, glazed with an egg wash, and sprinkled with a topping.

TOPPING

• King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• Brown sugar
• Cinnamon
• Salt
• Unsalted butter

In the end, the topping is a nice touch; however, it hides the pretty layered babka look.  And we all know it’s about the looks. 🙂  The loaf then rises for another 1 1/2 hours before it is baked.

The only issue that I had with this recipe was in the baking time.  The recipe directs you to bake the babka 40-50 minutes or until an internal thermometer read 195 degrees.  One of my goals this year is to be more faithful to using a scale to measure ingredients and to check temperatures with a thermometer.  I know that my oven usually takes the maximum amount of cook time, so I set my original timer for 45 minutes.  At the end of that time, my internal temperature was 183 degrees.  I then baked the bread for another 5 minutes.  This got the temperature to 190 degrees.  It took another 4 minutes for the internal temperature to finally reach the specified 195 degrees.  This made the ends of my loaf a little dry.  So my dilemma is…who wins…time or temperature.

With a little tweaking, this could easily become a favorite recipe.  It does take some time to make because of the long rise times, but it is not labor-intensive.

Because my loaf is a bit dry, it may become french toast.  I didn’t get a chance to make french toast from last week’s chocolate loaf.  This week may be the week for babka french toast.  Cinnamon is a close second to chocolate!

from Tracey G.

 Cinnamon Pinwheel Biscuits from King Arthur Flour

Contributed by Mark Bittman and featured in the 2018 Holiday issue of KAF’s Sift Magazine

I have to thank Kris for reminding me of this recipe when I was floundering as to what yo make this week, it was so easy I made 2 batches in a row. I’d forgotten I’d ran across it a month or so ago when perusing for recipes to make for future Mondays!

I’m usually a drop biscuit girl if & when I make them, so this was a first for me to roll out biscuit dough. And it was a little unruly to deal with – but, by no means the kind of unruly that makes you swear off making something ever again! And the end result was wonderful, I had a perfectly flaky dough!

I have to say though, that I did follow the advice of one reviewer as far as the filling is concerned: I bumped up the sugar & butter a little bit, and used half granulated sugar & half brown sugar instead of just all granulated. But, this would be totally up to you if you wanted to try it too!

The ingredients for the dough & filling are very simple and basic:

Dough:

• Flour

• Baking Powder

• Baking Soda

• Salt

• Butter

• Buttermilk or Yogurt

Filling:

• Granulated Sugar (again, I used half granulated and half brown sugars)

• Butter (I used an extra tablespoon, so 3 instead of the original 2), melted

• Cinnamon

It all comes together so fast and easy, as I said earlier, I made two batches just as easy as one!

Start with your flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt combined in a large bowl, I just used a whisk to combine them. Cut in the cold butter until it resembles coarse meal.

At this point I mixed up the filling ingredients.

Add your buttermilk or yogurt to the dry ingredients and stir just until it comes together to form a ball. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times. Roll it out into about a 10″x14″ rectangle and trim the edges to square it up.

Brush the dough with the melted butter, spread the cinnamon-sugar topping on to about a 1/2 inch away from the edges. Roll it up starting on the long side. Then you pop the rolled log into the freezer for about 10-15 to firm it up for easy slicing.

Once it comes out of the freezer,slice in 3/4″ slices and place on your baking sheet (ungreased, but I used parchment) and bake 11-13 minutes until golden brown.

Another suggestion in the review I read was to add an icing of powdered sugar & milk etc, when it comes out of the oven, so, I tried it. The consensus here was they were better without an icing. But it’s something worth trying if you want to – you may like it! I want to try a cream cheese icing next time…

And that’s it. That’s all there is to these yummy little pinwheels. Easy and yummy – best combination there can be in my opinion! Do give Cinnamon Pinwheel Biscuits a try!!