Chocolate Babka
Yeast of Eden mostly sells traditional long-rise bread, but every once in a while, Olaya makes something sweet. In The Walking Bread, the 3rd Bread Shop Mystery, she makes Babka. Because we eat gluten-free in our household, I included the gluten-free version, which is so good!Excerpt:One by one I pulled the loaf pans filled with Babka dough from the walk-in refrigerator. We’d spent the entire day before making the traditional dough, letting it rise, filling it with the coffee-infused chocolate schmear, shaping it, placing each log into a prepared bread pan, and then sprinkling the crumbly cinnamon-sugar topping on top. We tented each loaf pan before placing them into the refrigerator.“Why Babka?” I’d asked Olaya after she showed me the baking plan for the Art Car Show. The sheet of paper listing the various baking tasks we’d have leading up to the event lay on the table between us. “Babka. Panettone. Challah. Traditional bread. It is my specialty. No matter where it is from, what I want to share with my customers is the old way. I want them to experience bread the way it should be. The slow rise. The rustic experience, or the refined taste. Whatever it is, what I do is make bread the way it was made before bread machines and Wonder Bread.” She tapped her index finger on the paper. “Babka is not a common bread here. Most say it original, is that how you say it?”“Originated?” I said.She nodded. “Yes, yes. It originated in Eastern Europe. Russian or Slavic. Originated here with Jewish immigrants. You can find it in big cities. New York. San Francisco. Posiblemente en Houston, even. Not in a small town bakery or bread shop. But the Babka, it is good. The people, they love it. So I make the chocolate krantz cakes for this event.”And make them she did. We did. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them.
