In December I shared here one of my favourite Christmas cakes and today I want to add a recipe of the Polish Easter cake called ‘Babka’. It has some of my favourite ingredients: raisins and tangerine oil. I made it with my sourdough starter and I used wholemeal spelt flour. It baked in a lovely way. ‘Babka’ tastes scrumptious out of the oven with some butter spread on it. Yum! It’s simple to make, but as it’s a sourdough / yeast cake, it takes a day to make it. Enjoy!
This was my inspiration for this recipe.
Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
200g sourdough starter or 20g fresh yeast (plus one teaspoon of sugar, two tablespoons of milk and two tablespoons of flour)
480g flour
220ml milk
50g sugar (could be more / less)
6 egg yolks
120g butter melted and cooled
Zest from a half lemon
150g raisins (soak them in water and once drained, cover in potato flour)
2 drops of tangerine oil (optional)
Equipment: bundt baking pan greased with butter and sprinkled with fine-grained breadcrumbs.
Preparation
Mix a teaspoon of sugar with lukewarm milk and add it to sourdough starter (or yeast), then add 2 tablespoons of flour and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes (or until it doubles in size). When waiting, beat the egg yolks with the sugar until creamy. Add tangerine oil to milk. Pour the flour into a bowl, make a hole in the middle, fold in the starter (sourdough or yeast), milk, lemon zest, melted butter and egg mixture. Knead the dough until loose but smooth. Place the dough in a large bowl covered with a cloth, cover with a damp tea towel and leave it aside in a warm place for 2-3 hours (or until it doubles in size).
Take the dough out of the bowl, knock the air out by bashing it with your fist. Add the raisins and knead into the dough for 1-2 minutes. Grease the bundt pan with butter and sprinkle with fine-grained breadcrumbs and put in the dough. Cover it with the tea towel then leave in a warm place for 1-2 hours (or until it doubles in size).
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Place the bundt pan in the pre-heated oven and bake for 45-50 minutes (check the cake with a wooden skewer before removing from the oven). When baked, wait until cooler before taking the cake out of the bundt pan. And now you can enjoy your first slice!
I also want to mention another Easter recipe of the German Osterbrot Bread which is available here in English and in German and my step-by-step recipe for a sourdough starter on buy me a coffee, so if you’ve always wanted to start making your own starter, it might be your moment. Follow this link to my starter-making guide.
As I’m publishing my recipe in March, I’m taking this opportunity to wish you a wonderful Easter. Let’s find time for rest, fun and of course, dolce far niente. Thank you for reading my blog!
What is your favourite Easter cake? Please let me know in the comments below.
Till next time.
Kinga
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