Ube Babka
Chocolate babka has been all the rage over my Instagram feed during quarantine baking. However, as my family isn’t big on chocolate and we had recently been on an ube craze, I thought it might be an interesting profile to mesh Filipino ube with the classic braided, Jewish bread. Inspired by halo-halo, I added shredded coconut into the ube filling for texture and a subtle nuttiness.
I held onto the braided pattern of babka, but did three separate braids crosswise instead of one long lengthwise. With the refreshing purple filling, these three brands yield a beautiful cross-section.
Once glazed lavishly with a sugar syrup, this babka approximated a familiar-tasting ube coconut candy more than anything (but what’s to complain?) This ube babka is perfect to eat hot straight out of the oven; but I loved equally the next day as the base for french toast.
Like my cardamom cinnamon brioche rolls, the dough is a brioche recipe generously adapted from Bonnie Ohara’s Bread Baking for Beginners. This babka is the final recipe of my ube trilogy: ube pinwheel buns and ube “yam” bread.
Ingredients:
Dough:
78g whole milk
90g butter, softened at room temperature
128g eggs, room temperature
35g sugar
3g yeast
300g all-purpose flour
6g salt
1 additional beaten egg for egg wash
Filling:
6-7 big ube/purple yam
130g granulated sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter
30g shredded coconut
Glaze:
30g water
30g granulated sugar
Steps:
Make filling: Roast ube in an 350º F oven for 40-50 minutes until soft. Peel skin and mash ube into a mush. Optionally, push the mush through a sifter and remove the excess fibers. In a saucepan on medium low heat, mix in sugar and butter until completely incorporated and the mush becomes a thicker paste. Mix in shredded coconut and set aside.
Whisk butter, sugar, milk, eggs, and yeast in a large bowl. Add in flour and salt, and mix with a spoon until smooth. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
Using your hands (or a stand mixer) knead the dough for 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. If kneading by hand, push the dough forward with the heels of your hands and folding the elongated dough back. Rotate by 90º and repeat. It should pass the window-pane test by now.
Place the dough in a clean large bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rise in a warm spot (75-80º F) for 1-2 hours, or doubled in size.
Grease a 9.5” x 4” or 8” x 5” loaf pan with butter/oil. Preheat oven to 350º F.
Punch down the dough in the bowl to let out excess gas. Roll the dough into a 3mm thick large rectangle with the long sides horizontal to you.
Using a spatula, spread the filling over the dough, leaving a 1/2 inch margin of dough uncovered on the long side furthest from you.
Roll the dough up tightly and seal the seam by pressing and pinching the dough together.
Using a cotton string (or even unflavored floss), encircle the roll where you want to cut it and pull the ends of the string to snip into sections. Cut the log into thirds. I prefer strings/floss over knives or bench scrapers because they leave the log circular and don’t smush them flat on the bottom while cutting.
Taking one of the three shorter logs, slit them lengthwise into three equal strands while leaving a 1/2” margin at the top in tact (so that the strands are still connected). Slightly rotate the strands so the filling is exposed to the top and braid them together. Upon reaching the end of the braid, pinch together the ends and tuck it under the entire braid. Repeat this process for the other two logs.
Place the three logs in the loaf pan such that the braids run crosswise along loaf pan. Brush with egg wash.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Meanwhile, make the glaze by simmering water and sugar in a saucepan completely clear and thick.
Remove from oven. While still hot, brush all of the glaze on top of the babka.
Let cool for 30 minutes until room temperature and serve.
Additional Notes:
The ube filling can be made the night before, just store it in the fridge.