Sweet & Savoury Babkas

Yes as you can tell, I almost turned the kitchen into a bakery over the long festival break!

Made 3 types of babkas using an overnight sponge mix. Used the recipe from Avner Laskin's book.

This is a savoury babkas with ham and cheese. To be honest, it didn't turn out as good compared to the sweet ones. I think a basic dough mix would have been better with the savoury fillings.

Chocolate babkas - ha ha...cheated by using nutella mix and then sprinkled some sugar on the top before baking. This was the best flavour out of the three.

For the final one, I decided to use up my red bean paste which has been sitting in the fridge for a while, waiting patiently for a purpose and grand entrance! Unfortunately I was a little too generous greedy (what's new) with the filling. A little less filling would have been perfect. But since we like red bean it was still ok.

Baked Holey Dough

Anything fried taste better but if you are conscious of your health, these healthy alternatives are a pretty good in its own right.

To avoid any confusion to your taste sense and expectations, best not to call them doughnuts. They are more like baked bread as compared to doughnut = fried bread!!

SO....decided to call mine baked dough holes or baked dough. Not a very original name but oh well, at least can distinguish from doughnuts.

My innocent search on the internet left me overwhelmed and information overload. Believe me. there are quite a number of different recipes for baked doughnuts available to suit your taste and preference. I didn’t realize it was such a ‘hot’ item. I suppose being a healthier alternative (compared to deep-fried) makes it a much sought after recipe indeed! After all who can resist a doughnut with a hot cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate!! Drooling already at the thought.

Actually my journey began earlier when Master Prince saw a print out recipe of WildYeast’s baked donugnut picture. As you know, I am currently cultivating my Starter during this period. Master Prince was very excited with the yeasty baby though he turns his nose up and makes a face and pinches his nose every time I feed it. Master Prince then asked me point blanked one morning, “Can we use the yeast to make doughnuts??” I know what you want and like dear! After a much long wait, I hope you like these baked holey dough.

After much consideration, I decided to stick with WildYeast’s recipe – you would have think why I wasted all that time when I should have stuck to it in the first place right? Well the others were proved to be very interesting read. Afterall, one can only look at broadening and arming one’s knowledge. Truth be told, after a while it just got too confusing and I decided it was probably best to stick to the original plan! Ha ha

Cut dough up using cutter.

All ready for resting and proofing.

Out of the oven....nice and puffed!!

Cinnamon and sugar mix for adults and anyone who likes cinnamon and sugar!!

The 'holes' didn't go wasted either.

The sugar mix I used. I had orange coloured sugar, think it would have been more striking with red or dark green - would be a great xmas mix!

Since I was going to a friend's open house and couldn't go empty, decided to turn the rest into chocolate bites decorated with all the sprinkles and sugar sparkles I had in the cupboard.

They were well received by the children. My friend's son had 4 at one go!!

MP also enjoyed himself especially the chocolate part!! Totally lip-smacking :) I think if he would have fit his whole hand into his mouth, if he could.