A wine, a recipe and an album
Part 2, indulging in the season
This installment of a wine, a recipe and an album is all about indulging. It has been a rough time in the world and I have had to unwind through baking and reading. I hit my 200 book mark of 2023 already, not reading Proust or Homer, but lots of cozy mystery series while I deal with nerve pain issues, oh and of course tons of books on wine. Anyway, back to what I actually wanted to share. For me, the ultimate indulgence in baking and eating is babka. It isn’t a cake and it isn’t a bread, it lies somewhere in between and to me it is perfection.
I warn you, I once again have given you a recipe you either want to start early in the day or break up into two days. The best things in life take time.
The Wine
Silk & Spice, and everything nice. Is it going to shock anyone I chose a Portuguese wine, of course it won’t. I thrive during the fall and winter seasons. The smells, the food, the layers and cozy blankets, and of course the wine. I gravitated to a red wine from Portugal full of fruit and spice aromas and flavors when I decided to bake babka. I thought it would be a fun wine to have a small glass of while doing all the things on the second day of baking. And it was.
The wine has aromas and flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, toast, forest floor, plums, bramble, black currant, dark cherries and subtle hints of vanilla. The name indeed made sense to me. The tannins in this wine are silky and smooth and the spices are truly there. In my mind this is a perfect autumn wine to enjoy while baking. The notes of spice go right along with my babka recipe. I do not drink and eat the babka together, remember this wine is enjoyed while baking!
The grapes in the blend are 35% Touriga Nacional, 35% Alicante Bouschet, 15% Baga, 10% Syrah, 5% Tinta Roriz. The winemaker is Diogo Sepulveda, he has had quite a career around the world as a winemaker and in 2022 joined the Sogrape family and is head of winemaking at Mateus, Verdes, Dão and Lisbon.
The recipe
Orange chocolate babka
Ingredients
100ml whole milk (lactose free works in case you are like me)
550g bread flour (and a small dusting for your work table)
100g sugar
7g active yeast
4 large eggs at room temperature
150g salted butter, softened (if you want to use unsalted butter you must add in 1/2 tsp of salt)
Filling
60g light brown sugar
40g dutch processed cocoa powder
110g dark chocolate 75% +
30g milk chocolate 40-45%
110g salted butter
2 naval oranges, zested (save the juice for the glaze)
Glaze
110g sugar
2 naval oranges, juiced
1oz white port
Directions
Microwave the milk until it is warm but not hot. Set aside.
Add flour, sugar and yeast into the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix slowly with a dough hook attachment until combined.
Add the warm milk and eggs, mixing on medium speed. Do this until the dough is smooth (could take 10 minutes).
Add butter, one chunk at a time until fully incorporated. This may take up to 10 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if you need to.
Add dough to a clean large bowl, cover with cling wrap and let rise in a warm area for 2 hours or until it has doubled in size.
* At this point I place the dough in fridge overnight, but if you want to do this in one day, only chill in the fridge for 1hour, then follow below instructions. If you are chilling the dough overnight, just take the dough out the next day, put in a warm spot for 30 minutes and then continue below instructions.
While dough is proving again or still in the fridge during that hour session, add all of the filling ingredients to a saucepan at a low to medium heat, stirring until everything has melted together. Cool completely and then place in the fridge to chill for 30 mins, stirring every 10 minutes to make sure it doesn’t get too hard, you want it chilled but spreadable.
Remove the dough from the fridge (or from your warm spot) and roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a long rectangle as best you can. (See my video above).
Preheat oven to 350F.
Next, spread the filling over the dough using a palette knife.
Start rolling the dough up from the shorter end. Roll the dough up into a sausage.
Place the roll seam-side down, and cut in half across the length so you have two long pieces.
Lay the two pieces out side by side, criss cross them over each other along the length, this does not have to be perfect. Place into a parchment lined bread tin. You can also just place this on a parchment cake tin, it really depends what you have in the kitchen and how much your babka has risen.
Cover with a damp tea towel let rise for an hour.
Bake for 30-40 mins until golden on top.
While the babka is baking, in a small saucepan simmer the glaze ingredients until it thickens.
Brush the freshly baked babka with the warm glaze.
Enjoy warm, it will last 3 days if covered, just warm in oven for gooey deliciousness.
The Album
The album I chose to pair with the wine and babka is Yael Naïm’s self titled album. Yael is one of my favorite female artists. She has a voice that I just adore and hope you will too. She sings in three languages, Hebrew, English and French and does a whip ass cover of a Britney Spears song on this album. Sorry Brit fans, I am not a pop music fan, but this version is absolutely amazing.
I decided on this album because when I think of babka, I am taken to Poland, where it originated and where my maternal grandmother and her ancestors are from. But the album also transports me to Israel and then to France where my love of wine began in the Rhône Valley. So then I think about Old World wines. And then it ties into Portuguese wines and why I chose a wine from Portugal. Now you see how my crazy brain works.
This album has a very fall/winter feel to it. It makes me feel cozy and warm. I sound so goofy right now. But because it gives me cozy vibes, the babka was a must. What is more warming and cozy than a hot out of the oven babka.
I hope you enjoy this installation and I am really excited to hear if you either baked the babka, tried the wine or listened to the album! Definitely leave me a comment below to let me know.
