salted peanut butter babka

salted peanut butter babka

• 30 Sept 2024

A few years ago I was the babka queen but it's been at least 2 years since I last made one. A few months ago I saw a recipe for salted peanut scrolls in Delicious magazine. They sounded delicious and I planned to make a batch, that is until I wondered whether a peanut butter flavoured babka was a thing.

After I discovered it was indeed a thing, I decided to make one. I used the Honey and Co babka dough recipe, then filled the babka with the Cherry Moon General store filling, then soaked it in maple flavoured syrup after taking it from the oven. Making a babka is a 2 day process. I usually make the dough and refrigerate it overnight before shaping, proving and baking.

It was quite cold  in Sydney the day I made the dough, so it took 4 hours for my filled babka to prove and instead of brunch, I had a slice for afternoon tea. Here’s the recipe for you which makes one babka, inspired by this recipe.  For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Salted Peanut Butter and Maple Babka inspired by Cherry Moon General Store
Ingredients
90 g diced unsalted butter at room temperature
2 tsp dried yeast
1 egg
40g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
100-125 mls milk
330 g plain flour
A pinch of table salt

Filling
100g smooth peanut butter
55g roasted salted peanuts, roughly chopped
100g brown sugar

To finish
2 tbs melted butter or cream
Sea salt flakes

Maple flavoured syrup 
100g caster sugar
100 mls water
1½ tsp maple extract

Method
Place the butter, yeast, egg, sugar, vanilla and 100 mls of the milk in a large mixing bowl, then top with the flour and salt. Use the dough attachment on your mixer or your hands to bring it all together to a smooth, shiny dough, adding the remaining 20 mls of milk if it looks dry. Don’t worry too much if you still have some whole flecks of butter running through the dough; they will make your final bun super-light.

Once the dough has a nice texture to it, wrap the bowl in plastic wrap and place in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. You can leave it there for up to 12 hours, but not much longer or it will start to double in size.

Assembly
Place the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface and roll into a rectangle of about 40cm x 30cm. While the dough is still cool, evenly spread with peanut butter. Combine the peanuts and the brown sugar in a bowl then sprinkle the mixture over the peanut butter.

If the dough has softened too much for you to handle it, place on a tray and chill in the fridge for 10 minutes to firm up. While you are waiting, butter a 1kg loaf tin and line the base and long sides with baking paper, making sure that there is an overhang so that you will be able to lift the baked loaf out easily.

Tightly roll up the dough from the long side. Use a pastry cutter or sharp knife to cut the log in half along its length to expose the layers. Place the halves with the cut sides facing upwards. Lift one halved log over the other so that they form a cross at their midpoints, with the filling layers still pointing upwards. Continue to twist the strands over each other until the dough looks like a lovely, twisted plait.

Place in the lined baking tin and leave to prove in a warm place until the dough is fluffy, soft and doubled in size. This will take about 1 and 1/2 hours in a warm kitchen, or up to 4 hours if it is chilly.

Preheat the oven to 220°C conventional. Brush the surface of the babka with melted butter or cream then sprinkle the top with a few salt flakes. Place the babka in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 190°C. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, then turn the tin around for an even bake and leave for another 10 minutes. Bake for a further 15-20 minutes until the babka is well browned and cooked through.

While the babka is in the oven, prepare the maple flavoured syrup. Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook for a few minutes until thickened. Take off the heat then add the maple extract. Set aside until needed.

Remove the babka from the oven and immediately pour the maple flavoured syrup all over the hot babka. You must let the babka cool completely in the tin or it will fall apart.

My next door neighbour loved it and came back for seconds whilst the babka was declared 'good but different' by my work colleagues and definitely was at it's best when still warm.

This was my first attempt at this babka and whilst good, I consider it a work in progress. The yeast I used to make the dough was on it's last legs, so the dough didn't rise as much as I would like and the filling was a bit dry, making it hard to twist. I think a little butter added to the peanut butter would solve this problem, so I'm keen to make the babka again, maybe drizzled with a little maple flavoured icing.  

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian