high-bar baking

One of my favourite baked goods is the babka. Fluffy enriched dough, chocolate swirls, drenched in simple syrup, what’s not to the love? And most people haven’t heard of it, either; I love converting people to its delicious ways. But I haven’t made it in a while. First, because I eat too much of it, but mostly because I haven’t been able to get it right recently.

The best recipe I’ve tried is Paul Hollywood’s. I made it perfectly one time, the first time. Every time since, I do something wrong, and I’m not sure what. It comes out of the oven, I put the syrup on it, and as it cools it collapses. A few of the strongest top edges stand high like little arches, bridging from one side of the loaf pan to the other. But underneath, everything weaker falls. In the past, I’ve tried to let it keep proofing, because he says to let it double in size (even though doubling for a twisted loaf is a ridiculous metric). 

I was reading last night, though, that yeasted doughs at altitude have the same problem I’ve seen in some of my cakes — they rise too fast and then fall. Since I’m now acknowledging that sometimes I may have altitude-related snafus (a thing I have denied for years), I thought it might be the perfect time to try again.

But because I am a bad scientist, I changed a bunch of variables all at once. Yes, I’m paying for it. I decreased the yeast from 5g to 3g (3.2g, if we’re being really specific. I love my aggressively specific scale that may or may not be used in other households for drugs). I let the syrup cool the entire time the loaf was baking, and I also let the loaf proof for not nearly as long as I probably should have.

So we have a bit of a flat babka. And I didn’t cook the syrup for a super long time, either, so it was more watery than I was comfortable with and I left some off. I’m honestly sitting here holding my breath waiting for the other shoe to drop and the babka to fall along with it. I have such trust issues with this recipe. It always tastes great, of course, but I’m not here for taste alone. I want to nail the texture too. 

The inside may be underdone. Or collapsed. Or wet. And I’ve really got to start rolling this loaf much taller than I roll it wide; I’m tired of doubling it back on itself multiple times in my short little pan. I promise, though, the baby babkas cut from the ends of the log were very, very yummy. 

Here’s to someday making my chocolate babka recipe not the inferior one.