White Chocolate and Cinnamon Babka?
And it has streusel crumbles on top? Hm, Zabar's doesn't have that one in stock now—or ever. But D.C.–based online bakery ShoeBox Oven does. Since pickin's are slim in the District, babka-wise, ShoeBox wants to become the missing Babka Buff. Sure, the Jewish delis out in the Maryland suburbs sell a good standard loaf, but within city limits, selection is limited to Dean and Deluca's one location.
Krishna Brown—the aproned, and more oftentimes overalled, lady behind ShoeBox—has been experimenting with recipes lately. At first, people told her babka and danish doughs were interchangeable. But Brown flat-out disagrees. "That's like comparing cat and man," she says. "They may have the same blood, brain and skin, but are completely individual creations."
Brown has a butter totem pole all sketched out, and babka dough sits at the bottom, underneath danish, croissant, and cream puff doughs (all way more buttery). After some fiddling, she's settled on a recipe she likes. Maggie Glazer's Lithuanian Yeasted Coffee Cake" recipe from the Blessing of Bread Jewish cookbook, but the coffee cake nomenclature is a bit of a turn-off for Brown.
When Brown premiered her babka test loaf at the Arlington, Virginia, farmers' market last week (ShoeBox Oven's stall is a hot ticket every Saturday), some marketgoers reacted, "Oh, that's just a coffeecake." The streusel topping may be misleading, but there's still a little babka guy underneath. And it's what's inside that counts, right? Or is it? What makes a true babka? The sweet, yeasty cakelike dough? The bulkiness? (Usually weighs more than a brick). The baker? (A hunched-over Polish grandmother?)
Brown likes her funky white-chocolate filling and streusel topping—as have recent taste-testers—but she also wants to respect the classics. Can she do both? What are your thoughts on babkas and babka variations?
ShoeBox Oven
URL: shoeboxoven.com
Also found at: Arlington Farmers' Market on Saturdays, North Courthouse Road and North 14th Street, Arlington VA 22201
About the author: Erin Zimmer, Serious Eats's Washington, D.C., correspondent, is a just-graduated Georgetown gal following her nose about town as Washingtonian magazine's Dining intern and Best Bites blogger. She got her start as the Hoya campus paper's food columnist, and since entering "real person-hood" has ached for her dining hall's omelet station.
Photograph by Jason Katz
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5 Comments:
babka can absolutely have a crumble topping. i grew up on Long Island, where Zomick's babka is practically a religion, and theirs has a delicious crumb topping. in fact, their chocolate meltaway, a flat chocolate babka, is practically all crumbs - the best part! they even now package and sell just the crumbs to customers since everyone ends up picking them all off of the cake anyway.... the filling and a glaze on top makes it a babka.
the real question is: chocolate or cinnimon? for me, chocolate all the way.
rebeccadiamond at 12:50PM on 08/24/07
I haven't had babka since I made it in culinary school. We made a chocolate AND cinnamon babka and it was DELICIOUS! I have a recipe from Nancy Silverton of the Los Angeles-based La Brea Bakery which she uses to make her "Bobka Muffins." Can't wait to try that recipe and Maggie Glazer's which you included in the article.
meechiko at 1:55PM on 08/24/07
I have never eaten a babka. I am wondering if a mail-order would still provide the delicious taste you describe?
JEP at 3:53PM on 08/24/07
I was inspired by the article to try my hand at making babka and thought that the recipe that this post linked to would be a good start. Unfortunately, there are some glaring errors in the recipe...it lists only 2 TB flour (although the instructions mention 5 1/2 cups, so that was easy to fix) and then doesn't say how much yeast to use.
Undaunted, I figured that since it produced 2 loaves and was a very sweet dough (1 cup of sugar in the recipe) it should have at least 2 TB yeast (perhaps that was where the 2 TB flour came from).
Anyway, making those adjustments produced two very nice chocolate-cinnamon babkas :-) But be warned -- because it is such a sweet dough, it will take a loooooooong time to rise (too much sugar impedes the yeast's activity).
Dominic
the zen kitchen
dvchurch at 12:40AM on 08/26/07
JEP
This is the baker at ShoeBox Oven. Just wanted to let you know that babka is perfect for mail-order. Maybe it is all the sugar and chocolate, but babka is rather resilient. But even so, ShoeBox Oven bakes and mails orders within the same day, using priority mail (2 to 3 days, usually two) and Next Day mail. It also freezes well. So if you cant finish the 3 lbs of babka in one-sitting, then you could always freeze and save it for later.
Dominic:
I found the recipe to have some glaring errors as well. But I dont think this has to do with Glazer's recipe, but perhaps the person who edited it for the web. You could always use your favorite danish dough recipe, minus a few ounces of butter and with babka you do not have to do the turn and folds like you'd have to do for a danish dough. And you are right about that rise. You need to let that dough rise in its own time. But it is worth the wait.
happyfatskinnygirl at 9:27AM on 08/26/07