{"id":452,"date":"2019-05-11T00:16:26","date_gmt":"2019-05-11T00:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/?p=452"},"modified":"2019-05-11T00:16:26","modified_gmt":"2019-05-11T00:16:26","slug":"breaking-babka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christiniacrippes.com\/food\/2019\/05\/11\/breaking-babka\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking babka"},"content":{"rendered":"

During my year of bread<\/a>, babka — or the similar povitica — was always on my list but I was too afraid to spend the time needed to make this beautiful treat.<\/p>\n

Fate tempted me back when I found a wonderful looking babka recipe in my Cook It In Your Dutch Oven<\/a> cookbook from America\u2019s Test Kitchen.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t lie, it\u2019s a multi-day affair. That bothers me less now that I work your standard 9 to 5 with weekends free. But it does take some planning, say, when you\u2019re scheduled to have 3 hours of your afternoon spent at the theater with Avengers: Endgame<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Forgot an ingredients photo but here’s my table with the 18 x 24 dough covered in filling, pre-roll.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even with that, I found it to be worth the effort. So much so that I made it two weeks in a row. (I may have also seen Endgame two weeks in a row.)<\/p>\n

Mostly I just wanted to try to redo the recipe with my favorite filling. I know, I know it\u2019s sacrilege to think there\u2019s something better than chocolate, but I frickin\u2019 love cream cheese filling.<\/p>\n

The second time worked slightly better in some ways, but I think that\u2019s mostly just the nature of breads. Sometimes the mix needs some tweaking.<\/p>\n

My first attempt had the stand mixer get the dough perfectly concocted in well short of the 10 to 12 minutes recommended, so I stopped it. But that meant that I had to let my dough rise for longer because the yeast didn\u2019t activate as well. The second time it was sticky and slow like it was supposed to so everything rose well.<\/p>\n

The second time my filling was softer because I probably could have used a little more cream cheese. (I replaced 12 oz. of chocolate chunks\/cocoa with 8 oz. cream cheese, and I think 12 oz. may have made a better, thicker consistency, but it still worked.) The first time it was smooth and just stiff enough to spread and keep a nice firm shape.<\/p>\n

Either way, as long as you\u2019ve done a handful of breads before, I think anyone can make this one. It wasn\u2019t even *that*<\/strong> hard to make it look pretty.<\/p>\n

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The creamy cream cheese one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The gooey chocolate one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here\u2019s what I did:<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Dough<\/em><\/p>\n