Lemon-Poppy Cream Cheese Babka Recipe

This recipe for a lemon, poppy and cream cheese sourdough babka is a bit of work, but well worth it for the rich, sweet result. You will need to start by building your levain. But if you are intimidated to try making babka using the sourdough method, you could also use the filling recipe along with any babka dough you prefer. Building a levain, sometimes called a preferment, is common in many sourdough recipes, and it’s incredibly useful. Building a levain allows you to maintain a small amount of starter and use a portion of it to inoculate a larger quantity of flour and water for a specific recipe. Levain builds can vary widely in their hydration depending on the final dough. This not only makes for a very manageable amount of starter, but because it uses such a small quantity, the sour flavor is restrained and mellow—ideal for sweeter, enriched doughs. Since all sourdough starters are unique, the maturation time varies widely—anywhere from 6 to 12 hours—so keep an eye on it the first time. And timing is everything. Generally, I like to feed my starter first thing so I can build my levain early in the day. This allows me to mix a dough in the evening and give it a few hours at room temperature before transferring it to the fridge overnight. The next morning, I can shape and bake. To figure out what timing will work best for you, get familiar with your starter’s growth times and work backwards from when you’d ideally like to enjoy the final product. This formula appears in multiple enriched recipes in this book, and you can easily refer back to it. The post Lemon-Poppy Cream Cheese Babka Recipe appeared first on My Jewish Learning.