Vegan Babka

This recipe for Babka we made of course 100% VEGAN and is 100% DELICIOUS. Babka is a sweet braided bread filled with hazelnut chocolate paste. It’s a recipe where the most important ingredient is time! This sweet bread is not a quick recipe but worth every minute! This Jewish tradition is originated from Poland but now this delicious bread is made all over the world! Fun fact: Babka in Polish means old lady or grandmother! This dough works perfect to make a night before. You can easily let it rest up to 12 hours in the fridge. We hope you enjoy it!

1 babka
Prep time: 25 minutes
Total time: 5 hours 50 minutes

Ingredients

Dough
100 ml oat milk, lukewarm
½ sachet (3.5 g) instant dry yeast
30 g sugar
⅛ tsp vanilla extract
170 g flour
Pinch salt
30 g vegan butter, room temperature

Filling
80 g hazelnut chocolate spread (vegan)
50 g dark chocolate (70% or higher)

Syrup
40 g of sugar
30 g of water

Method

1. Put the lukewarm oat milk in a bowl together with the yeast, sugar and vanilla extract. Stir everything together. Add the flour in the bowl along with the salt and vegan butter. Knead everything together for 10 minutes with a hand mixer (with kneading hook attached).
2. Wrap the dough tightly in cling film and put in the fridge for 4 hours.
3. Dust your work surface with some flour and roll out the dough (21 x 40 cm). Spread the hazelnut chocolate spread over the dough. Chop the dark chocolate into chunks and sprinkle over the hazelnut chocolate spread.
4. Use both hands to roll up the dough from the shortest end (21 cm), cut the roll in half lengthwise and braid together (see video for method). Place the babka in a cake tin (21 x 12 cm) lined with baking paper. Cover and let it rise for 1 hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and bake the babka for 25 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, make the syrup. Put the sugar and water in a pan and bring to a boil. When it starts to bubble, reduce the heat to low and let it bubble for 2 minutes, then remove the syrup from the heat.
7. Brush the babka immediately with the syrup when it comes out of the oven. Let the babka cool completely.

Tip: You can make the dough (up to and including step 2) a day in advance and keep it in the refrigerator. This saves time on the day you want to bake the babka.