Classic Babka with Orange Glaze (Vegan)
If you have never tried Babka my heart aches for all those lost years that you can never recapture. Perhaps for you Babka is just a punch line from Seinfeld but the reality is so much sweeter.
Babka is a sweet yeasted bread dough that is rolled into a large rectangle, brushed with melted “butter” and sprinkled with a mixture of cinnamon, cocoa and brown sugar and then rolled up and coiled into a bundt pan. Once your golden sweet bread is out of the oven, drizzle it with orange glaze and feed the hordes that have gathered silently in your kitchen, drawn by the fragrant smells of cocoa, yeast, vanilla, orange and cinnamon.
It is time to put regrets behind us and make Babka, the best freaking Babka on this planet, except for the one your grandmother made, and never wrote down the recipe for.
Berta Kosatzky brought a babka, and the moment Boris Lemkin saw it he grabbed it and ate half of it, hollering that only saints in Paradise were served such delicacies.
Babka comes to me in flashes when I am baking. I see my Grandma Eva’s short fat fingers working the dough in her all pink kitchen. If there was anyone who expressed herself through food it was her: pregnant at 16, three boys by 18. A handful of flour, a splash of vanilla extract, a coffee cup of sugar; food was the song that flowed from her heart.
I remember the day I picked my dad up from an operation and handed him a huge wedge of freshly baked Babka. He tore into it, snuffling that it tasted just like his mom’s. High praise.
I also flash to my Mother-in-law’s sparse Kibbutz living-room where the whole family gathered on folding chairs each Shabbat to eat her fragrant cinnamon chocolate babka, drink Nescafe, reconnect and generally ruin their appetites for dinner.
“People love cinnamon. It should be on tables at restaurants along with salt and pepper. Anytime anyone says, “Oh this is so good, what’s in it?” The answer invariably comes back, “Cinnamon.” “Cinnamon.” Again and again. Lesser babka?? I think not.”
– Jerry Seinfeld
Please share with me any Babka related memories. I am all ears.
I adore desserts that walk the line between sweet and savory like Babka does. Give my Crystalized Ginger Biscotti a try. Drizzled with dark chocolate one might even call it a health food.
Check out my new Aquafaba page! For tips, tricks and to see all of my Aquafabulous recipes.
Good things come to those who wait. While you wait; smell the delicate fragrance of rising sweet dough that fill your house like vanilla sunlight.
- 1 tbsp yeast
- 1 cup vanilla soy milk or creamer vegan
- 5 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 ounces aquafaba
- 2 tsp flax seeds
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- zest from one orange optional
- zest from one lemon optional
- 1/2 cup vegan cream cheese
- 1 cup vegan butter melted
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 3 tbsp brown sugar
- 2 tbsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp melted butter for brushing on the dough
- 2 cups confectioners sugar
- 1/4 cup orange juice fresh
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
-
Whisk all of the ingredient together until you have a smooth lump free glaze. If you want a thicker glaze add more confectioner's sugar. Only drizzle on the cake once the cake has cooled.
-
Warm your soy milk till just warmer than body temperature, pour into a large bowl and sprinkle your yeast over the top. Stir. Allow to rest 5 minutes.
-
Pour 2 cups of your flour into the soy milk and whisk until blended. Stir in the orange and lemon zest if using.
-
Place aquafaba, flax seed, vanilla extract, cream cheese, sugar, salt and melted butter in a blender and blend until smooth.
-
Pour the blender contents into the bowl with the soy milk/yeast mixture and stir until combined.
-
Now add the rest of the flour 1/2 cup at a time stirring well between additions. You will have a soft dough.
-
Knead on a floured board 6-8 minutes until you have an elastic dough that is shiny and smooth. If the dough is too soft for you to work with add up to 1/3 cup more flour incrementally.
-
Place in a lightly oiled bowl and allow to rise, covered, for 1 hour in a warm spot.
-
Roll dough out on a lightly floured counter to a rectangle 10" by 17". Brush the dough with melted butter.
-
In a small bowl combine the cinnamon, cocoa and brown sugar. Sprinkle evenly over the rolled out dough.
-
Heat oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
-
Roll up the dough starting from the wide end. Lightly oil a bundt pan and coil the dough roll, seam side up, around it. Overlap if you need to. Let rise 40 minutes. If you have too much dough to fit in your bundt pan then use the excess for cinnamon buns or a tiny free-form babka.
-
Bake for 45 minutes.
-
Remove from oven. Allow to cool on a wire rack. Pop it out of the bundt pan after 10 minutes and allow it to cool on the wire rack, flat side down.
-
Drizzle with Orange Glaze.
This is stunning! What a cake. And vegan!?!? Everyone wins!
Everyone wins. My new motto! Thank you Katie❤️
What a beautiful story to go with this recipe. Cinnamon and orange babka is just perfect, I’ll certainly be trying this combination soon.
Thank you Alexandra!The women in lives who baked for us and fed us on their dreams.
Hi Hanna, there’s granulated sugar in the list of ingredients, but no mention of it in the recipe?
Hey Diedre, thanks for pointing that out. I fixed it in the instructions.
Thanks!
I made this for Rosh Hashana and it was a hit! I too felt like I was channeling my grandma while make it. I hadn’t had babka in years and years so I wasn’t sure it was right, but everyone in my family said it was great!
Thanks!
Oh how perfectly wonderful! Channeling your grandma, that is just so sweet.❤️ You made my day. Shana Tova.
Hi Johanne! This looks great! Would you happen to have tried a gluten free version?
Thanks, Peggie
Oh Peggie,
I’m so sorry I have not experimented with making it gluten free…yet. If you do try, could you please let me know how it goes???
-Hanne
Babka. Oh babka. The Queen of all yeast cakes. Yafah and I baked it together for “Aruchat Arba” at the Gan. Its funny how sometimes you can almost smell memories. The unique tang of yeast, Yafah’s Lobello skin cream, acrylic paint from the children’s last activity. And most of all the smell of sunbaked desert children mixing with cinnamon, the smell of happiness.
Babka does not exist without memories of Babka. It is not possible to taste babka without having lived babka before. Is there a physics theorem on Babka? Was Einstein working on the theorem of Babka before he died? Cinnamon and chocolate, yeast and lemon peel, a Time Machine to the Shtetl.
Can you please tell me how I can make th it s gluten free…? I have tried many times to convert vegan babka recipes by just “switching” to a GF flour mix with added xanthan gum, but nothing ever turns out normally with success.
Help please? This sounds too amazing not to try making for Thanksgiving this year!
Oh I have never de-glutened this. I have had great success with Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten free flour mixing the past. Maybe start by trying that and then let me know how it works out. Good luck!!!!!