Chocolate Babka Tips for Fellow Weirdoughs -

A belated birthday Babka for my friend would be cause to make a huge mess in the kitchen today. Using the crazy-easy recipe from Make It Dairyfree, I created a gorgeously curvaceous loaf of chocolate babka. To follow are my hopefully helpful notes on the process…

1.) Check your yeast. If it’s not Instant, make sure you activate it good and well. I have a big thing of Active Dry yeast, so I heated the soy milk in the recipe on the stovetop to 110 degrees and mixed in 2 and 1/4 teaspoons of yeast and 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar. Let it sit for 10 minutes. It should by frothy and smell oh so bready.

2.) Don’t add the salt until the yeast is incorporated into the flour in the mixer. Salt inhibits yeast and you need that yeast to be good and active.

3.) I let my dough rise in an oiled glass bowl covered with oiled plastic wrap. I feel like I read somewhere that the steel mixer bowl ‘s ions inhibit the yeast, but I could be mistaken. (All this science, I don’t understand…)

4.) Baby, it’s cold outside… and in my apartment. When I rise my dough I utilize these tricks to make a nice cozy environment for my dough: a) While I am making the dough, I turn on the oven at its lowest setting (mine goes as low as 170) and then turn it off when it comes to temperature, cracking the door. I also boil a big pot of water to boil on the stove. Once the dough is ready to be set aside for rising (first or second), I place it in the oven and close the door. When the water is boiling I take it off the heat and put in on the bottom rack in there with the dough. I got a pretty good rise…

5.) Stretch dough into the big rectangle by hand before you use the rolling pin. It’s a lot easier than rolling out a blob.

6.) Roll it out nice and thin so you can have a lot of gorgeous layers. Don’t worry so much about trimming uneven sides. All of it will contribute a unique looking babka.