Pumpkin Spice Babka
Soft pillowy pumpkin brioche swirled with sweet warming spices contrast that crunchy chocolatey streusel topping. Pumpkin Babka is the perfect bread to enjoy with a cup of coffee, or dare I say it, with a piping hot pumpkin spice latte? Yes, I said it, I know you were thinking about it too.
I know there has been a babka divide for some time now between cinnamon and chocolate ever since Jerry and Elaine brought it up. I’m here to put an end to it. I say, Pumpkin Babka!
Think about it, Pumpkin Babka is the perfect happy medium, there's cinnamon, there's chocolate, but more importantly, there's pumpkin and pumpkin spice.
Dear reader, I do hope you get the Seinfeld reference. If you missed the ’90s, here’s a little clip so you will understand. I highly suggest that you watch the entire episode though, Babka references are a-plenty.
Babka gained significant traction a couple of years ago circa 2017. But the truth is the bread has been around for a much longer time. But let me warn you, original babkas are very far removed from those sexy loaves of bread that have taken Instagram by storm.
Babkas seem to have been born around the 1800s in Poland, as a variation of the humble challah. It is speculated that surplus challah dough was filled with jam, fruit, and/or sometimes even cinnamon. It was twisted into a braid and baked in either a loaf pan or a fluted bundt pan.
*Note fluted pan babkas are called Krantzcake and are Israel's national dessert.
Babkas would be baked alongside the plain Shabbat challah and distributed amongst the smallest members of the family for snacking before dinner.
But that original babka lacked one key ingredient that all modern-day babkas do contain, butter. I know most of you must be thinking well what about the chocolate? Chocolate Babkas made their debut long after Polish jews emigrated to Brooklyn.
Just like challah, that original butter-less babka was enriched with oil and whole eggs. This meant that the bread had a much dryer and closed crumb than Brioche. But Jewish grannies are the most resourceful of cooks and brushed a light syrup glaze to the bread moist.
It is precisely Jewish grannies who gave this twisty wonderbread its name, because grandmas are, after all, always the best bakers. Babka literally translates to little grandmother, or grannie, if you will. It's an endearing diminutive present in many Slavic tongues and closely related to the Yiddish word for grandma, Bubbe.
Babka transformation happened after Polish Jews emigrated to the US. Back in the homeland, chocolate was not always available, and when it was, the price was astronomical. Chocolate was reserved for special occasions, not for baking into leftover challah dough.
But in the Land of the Free chocolate was everywhere, and the price was just right. Chocolate Babkas popped up all over New York bakeries, Jewish New York bakeries that is.
But the chocolate Babaka of the mid 20th century still had a ways to go to meet our Babka standards today. The dough was still dairy-free, and dryer, but perfectly acceptable to enjoy at the end of a Kosher meal. Of course, that rule only applied to non-chocolate Babkas, because let's face it vegan chocolate was still nowhere to be found.
Soon the chocolate braid spread to the neighboring non-Jewish bakeries. That is where the magic happened, you see Greek and Italian bakers weren't restricted by Kosher rules and could enrich babka dough with butter. They did so liberally.
The thing about chocolate Babkas is that they were already banned from the Kosher dinner table because of good old chocolate. If you can't have Chocolate Babka every day anyway, why not have the best possible Chocolate Babka the days that you can? Having butter enriched chocolate Babka made all the sense in the world.
That's how this new and improved babka made it's way back to the Jewish household circa 1950. Soon Jewish bakers would start making enriched Babka dough no matter the filling. Because let's be frank, butter always makes bread better, always.
Travel a couple of decades into the future and we have so many different Babka variations that it is impossible to keep track of them. Bakers everywhere have let their imagination, and palates, go wild. We have pizza Babka and smores Babka and everything in between. Somewhere in the middle sits this Pumpkin spice Babka that I am sharing with you today.
Pumpkin Spice Babka
ingredients:
- 15 g (1 tbsp) instant yeast
- 120 g (1/2 cup) warm milk
- 505 g (4 cups) flour
- 145 g (3/4 cups) butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 yolk
- 135 g (3/4 cups) sugar
- 5 g salt
- 250 ml (1 cup) pumpkin purée
- 2 tbsp cream
- 70 g (1/3 cups) sugar
- 125 ml (1/2 cup) pumpkin purée
- 2 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tbsp ginger
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp cloves
- 1 tsp cardamom
- 70 g (1/3) softened butter
- 60 g (1/2 cup) flour
- 4 tbsp brown sugar
- 2 tbsp dutch processed cocoa powder
- 60 g (4 tbsp) butter
- 60 g (1/3 cup) chopped dark chocolate
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- Optional : 4 tsbp icing sugar
instructions:
How to cook Pumpkin Spice Babka
- Mix all the ingredients into a well-incorporated paste is formed.
- Set aside.
- Place the flour in a large bowl or a stand alone mixer bowl. Add the yeast on one side and salt on the other.
- Add milk, eggs, yolk, sugar and butter Beat at low speed for 2 min with the hook attachment or knead by hand for about 15 min.
- Increase the speed of the mixer to medium and knead for 6 more minutes
- Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and let rise (covering the bowl with plastic wrap) for an hour and a half to two hours or until it has doubled in volume.
- Line your baking tins with parchment paper.
- Punch out the air in the dough. Divide the dough in two and roll it out into two large rectangles. They should be at least two and a half times longer than the baking tins they will be baked in.
- Spread the filling evenly on the rectangles with the help of an offset spatula or the back of a spoon.
- Roll each dough into a log.
- Cut each log lengthwise, place the two halves next to each other and twist them together. Then coil each dough onto itself forming a figure 8.
- Place the dough into the mold and let them rise for 1:30 hours or until double in size. Note, you can also let them rise in the fridge for 12 hours instead but the bread must be allowed to come up to room temperature for 3-4 hours before baking.
- Preheat the oven to 180° C (350° F)
- Brush the loaves with the cream and sprinkle the chocolate streusel on top.
- Bake for 25 min or until the bread sounds hollow inside
- Sprinkle with powdered sugar or leave as is.
- Enjoy!
- Mix all ingredients in a food processor until you have the consistency of wet sand.
- Alternatively, you can mix the ingredients by hand with a pastry blender or with your fingers by pressing the butter and mixing with the dry ingredients.
