I’ve been making yogurt on and off for many years. Sure, it’s easier to buy it, but it’s significantly less expensive to make it yourself. And it’s easy.
Equipment: 1 gallon insulated drink container 1 large pan thermometer is helpful, but not crucial
Ingredients: 1 gallon whole milk 1 cup live yogurt (plain yogurt, yeah?)
Method: Heat the milk gently until it reaches scald temperature, around 180F, stirring often. You don’t want to burn it… The milk will start to form a skin on the surface. This step alters (or “denatures”) the proteins in milk to make better yogurt. Cool the milk to about 100-110F. A sink full of ice helps here, but simply waiting works too. The milk will feel quite warm on your wrist – a little hotter than you’d give to a baby. Mix in the yogurt, and put it all into the insulated container and leave overnight.
You now have a gallon of yogurt.
To make Greek yogurt out of this, line a colander with a fine clean cloth (i.e. pillowcase fabric) and pour the yogurt into it. I pull the fabric corners up to form a bag, and let the whey drain out over the sink over several hours. Removing some of the whey thickens the yogurt and removes a lot of the sour taste to which a lot of people object.
Well, once again it’s been a while since I posted a recipe, but at least it’s been less than a year.
Over Christmas I discovered babka when a friend gifted us two loaves. It was sinfully delicious, so I thought “I’ve got to learn how to make this”. I of course started with King Arthur. Their web site is packed with good recipes, all slanted, of course, to their products. I don’t mind that – I (almost) exclusively use King Arthur flour. They don’t make a semolina that I’m aware of…
Babka is of “eastern European” origin, coming to America with various waves of Jewish immigration. I’m not a good student of history, so I’ll leave it there. Babka is an enriched bread, meaning it contains sugar, butter, milk, and eggs. This recipe even contains a dash of vanilla.
The essence of babka is its construction. After the dough is risen, it’s punched down and refrigerated for several hours. This stiffens the dough and makes it easier to roll out into a rectangle. That rectangle is covered a filling of some sort, and rolled up like a jelly roll.
Sliced down the center of the roll, the two halves are then intertwined and placed in a loaf pan for another rise. After rising in the pans for a bit, off they go to the oven for 45 minutes or so at 350F.
As it’s enriched, the dough is more complex than plain bread dough, but it’s worth the trouble.
The Dough
Gather, measure, and arrange your ingredients before starting. I weigh what I can as it’s easier.
360 grams bread flour (King Arthur Organic in my house) 8 grams yeast (Fleischmann’s, of course) 8 grams salt (fine sea salt) 50 grams sugar
2 large eggs 2 tsp vanilla
125 ml warm milk (110F)
70 grams soft butter
Mix the dry ingredients, then add the milk, eggs, and vanilla, mixing well until the dough is smooth, then start adding the softened butter, about 10-15 grams at a time, kneading the dough until the butter is absorbed before adding another piece. The use of a large stand mixer is encouraged for this, although the intrepid can knead it in by hand.
For the dough into a ball. Cover and let rise until about doubled. Roll the dough out onto the counter, and wrap in plastic wrap. Place it in the refrigerator for at least several hours, or overnight.
The Filling
I’ve made a number of babka, either with a chocolate or cinnamon filling. A couple of them had apples slices incorporated as well for a bit of pizazz. Raisins are also optional with the cinnamon filling, as are nuts. Go wild.
Cinnamon Filling
100 grams brown sugar 11 grams cinnamon 4 grams flour 60 grams melted butter 15 ml water Optionally: 60 grams chopped nuts 60 grams raisins Really optionally: 2 apples, peeled and pared, cooked in a dab of butter until soft.
Melt the butter and/or chocolate. Combine the ingredients for either filling, leaving out nuts and raisins for ease of spreading.
Take the dough out of the refrigerator. Very lightly flour the counter, and roll the dough out into a rectangle about 9″ x 18″. Spread the filling evenly over the surface of the dough, all the way to the edges, except for one strip an inch or two wide at one end for sealing. Evenly sprinkle nuts, raisins, and/or apples over the filling.
Starting at the filled end, tightly roll the dough to enclose the filling, like a jelly roll. At the end, wrap the clear dough around to seal in all the filling, and roll it onto a cutting board. Now comes the fun. Slice the roll lengthwise down through the center to form two half-rounds of dough. Twist these half-rounds over one another, keeping the halves upright, from one end to the other, like the picture on the left, above.
Transfer to a buttered bread pan (I make two small loaves – it’s easier to share), and let rise again to almost double.
Bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes for a normal loaf, 40-50 minutes for two small loaves.
