Raspberry Brioche Babka
Fluffy and soft raspberry brioche babka with cinnamon, cloves, and freshly grated orange zest will cheer you up even on the gloomiest winter morning. This is one of those desserts that can be perfectly paired with a cup of a hot tea or your favorite coffee. Take a slice of this babka, add some homemade lemon curd or dulce de leche and you'll have a really nice, decadent dessert.
Ingredients
Poolish
- 40 ml milk (room temperature)
- 4 g active dry yeast
- 35 g all-purpose flour
Brioche dough
- 230 g all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ceylon cinnamon (or 1/2 tsp cassia cinnamon)
- 2 eggs (M size, room temperature)
- 60 g sugar
- 4 g sea salt
- 60 g butter (room temperature)
- freshly grated zest of 1 smaller orange
Quick raspberry jam
- 140 g raspberries (thawed)
- 50 ml raspberry juice (which remains after thawing)
- 50 g sugar
- ¼ teaspoon cloves (ground)
- 1,5 tablespoon corn starch
Eggwash
- 1 egg yolk (S size)
- 1 tablespoon milk
Simple syrup
- 30 g sugar
- 30 ml water
Instructions
Preparing the poolish
- Add all ingredients for the poolish and stir well together. Cover and leave for 30 min for the yeast to activate.
Kneading the dough
- To the bowl of a standing mixer add poolish, flour sifted with cinnamon, eggs, sugar, and salt, and start kneading at a slower speed. The dough should form after a minute. If you find it too dry, add a tablespoon of milk. If it seems too wet, add some more flour. Knead for 5 min and then pause.
- If the dough starts to stick to the sides of the mixing bowl, add some more flour and scrape it off with a silicone spatula. Start the kneading process again for 15 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and pliable.
- Now it's time to add butter and orange zest. First, add half of the butter diced to cubes and start kneading at a slower speed. Give the butter time to incorporate into the dough. After a few times, add the rest of the butter and freshly grated orange zest and let it knead for a few more minutes. The dough will be soft, but that's OK.
- Transfer it to a well-floured working surface and shape it into a ball. Place it in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a wet kitchen towel or plastic wrap and let it rise a bit.
- Put it in the fridge overnight, preferably for 10-12 hours. Be careful to protect the dough from the air so that you avoid drying out on the surface of the dough.
Raspberry jam
- Add the thawed raspberries to a small cooking pot along with the juice they've released, sugar, and ground cloves. Stir and cook for 5-6 min until the raspberries are completely softened and disintegrated.
- Towards the end of cooking, mix cornstarch with a few tablespoons of water and add to the raspberry mixture. Cook until the jam thickens, about a minute. Remove from the heat and let it cool completely. Cover and refrigerate until the next day.
Making the babka (next day)
- Good morning handsome, it's time to shape and bake our babka! Firstly, prepare a loaf tin by lining it with parchment paper. The dimensions of my loaf tin are 26 x 6 x 12 cm (10 x 2,4 x 5 inches).
- Take the dough and raspberry jam out of the fridge. Transfer the dough to a very well-floured surface and roll it out into a rectangle with approximate dimensions of 30 x 40 cm (17 x 12 inches). Spread the prepared jam over the brioche dough leaving the border without jam. Gently brush those borders with water and roll the dough into a log.
- Slice the rolled dough through the middle with a very sharp knife sprinkled with some flour or pastry scraper. Lay one piece of dough over the other so they form a cross shape and then twist both halves together. With the help of the pastry scraper transfer the babka to the loaf tin, cover it, and let it rise. It will take 2-2,5 hours probably, depending on the temperature of your room.
- 15 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 180°C (356° F). Brush the babka with prepared egg wash and if you wish, sprinkle with some chopped nuts. Place it in the oven on a medium rack and bake for 35 - 40 min. While the babka is in the oven, prepare the simple sugar syrup by mixing the water and sugar together and cooking it until it thickens. Set aside.
- Towards the end of baking, when babka is almost done, put a metal skewer or toothpick in the bread to check if it's baked. Then take it out of the oven, very carefully took it out of the loaf tin, and place it on the cooling rack.
- Brush the babka with sugar syrup while it's still warm. And now, the hardest part: wait for it to cool completely. Then cut it into slices and serve. Enjoy!
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Nutritional information provided is an estimate based on ingredients data and should be used for informational purposes only. Actual nutritional content may vary based on factors such as portion size, preparation methods and ingredients used.