Apples and Honey Babka

Just in time for Rosh Hashanah, this round, braided apples and honey babka is packed full of apple butter and drizzled with a honey icing.

Traditionally, on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) you dip apples in honey, and eat a round challah to symbolize the start of a new calendar cycle. This round coiled apples and honey babka combines all three of those things in one sticky, ooey-gooey, sweet dessert bread.

Whether you're kicking off the High Holy Days or just want to really wow your friends at brunch, your search for the perfect recipe ends here. This apples and honey round babka is it.

UPDATED 8/2021 — I've given this recipe a fairly massive post-pastry school update. I retested the recipe and reworked the dough to make it MUCH simpler, easier, and less messy to handle, shot all new photos, simplified the filling, and added a lot more info and a more robust FAQ section. How's that for a shanah tovah?

The filling for this apples and honey babka is super simple — a store-bought apple butter slightly dressed up with a bit of honey and cinnamon. Finely minced apples add a nice bit of sweetness and crunch.

Honestly, the trickiest part of the whole babka-making process is the twisting and coiling when it comes time to shape. Fair warning: Things will get messy. (But less messy than the original version of this recipe did!).

I do recommend knowing what plate or serving platter you want to use before you start baking, because once you take this apples and honey babka out of the oven you really don't want to have to move it too much. If you're particularly mess-averse, I did include instructions for how to bake this in a loaf pan instead of as a spiral.

This dough has two long rising periods and needs to cool completely before you add the honey drizzle, so I recommend making this over a two or three day period. Make the dough one day, shape and bake it the next, then add the icing drizzle shortly before serving. You can rush it a bit, but if you have the time to space it out, you should.

Apples and honey babka ingredient notes

Here's what you'll need to make this apples and honey babka!

• All-purpose flour - Bread flour will also work here.
• Salt - I use diamond crystal kosher salt. If you use a different brand and measure your salt with measuring spoons, use half as much.
• Honey - I used Local Hive Honey's New England honey for this. Any honey you like best is fine. The honey is used in the icing drizzle but also functions as sugar in the dough!
• Instant yeast - Also called "rapid rise" or "quick rise" yeast. If you only have active dry yeast, use 7 grams (2¼ teaspoons aka one packet) instead. I use SAF instant yeast.
• Cinnamon - I really like Vietnamese Cinnamon (aka Saigon Cinnamon) for its stronger flavor, but any ground cinnamon is fine.
• Nutmeg - Freshly grated on a microplane is always best. I get my whole nutmeg Spicewalla where a small tin will last you literally for years.
• Eggs - Large eggs.
• Whole milk - Lukewarm or slightly warm, but not hot.
• Unsalted butter - You'll need one stick for the dough, and 1 tablespoon for the icing. Make sure the butter is at a true room temperature for both. Room temperature butter should be soft and spreadable, but not melted. You should be able to easily press a finger into it and make an indent.
• Apple butter - Look for unsweetened apple butter, but whatever you can find at your local grocery store is fine.
• Apple - A crisp, firm apple like a pink lady, Cosmic Crisp, honey crisp, green apple works best. Avoid anything soft or mealy in texture like macintosh or red delicious.
• Powdered sugar - For the honey glaze.

how to make apples and honey babka

Babka dough is a brioche dough, which means it's enriched with butter, milk, and eggs. The butter is added last because it's a fat, and if you include it from the start, it will coat the flour and other ingredients and make it harder for them to absorb the milk.

1. Mix the dough [2 to 3 minutes] - Mix all of the ingredients except butter with a dough hook until they combine into a shaggy, messy ball in the bowl and there aren't any dry bits of flour left in the bottom.
2. Knead the dough [3 to 4 minutes ] - Once the dough comes together, increase the speed and mix on medium until the dough passes the "windowpane test."
3. Add the butter [7-10 minutes] - Add the soft, room temperature butter 1 tablespoon at a time, letting it fully incorporate between each addition.
4. Knead the dough [3 to 4 minutes] - Once the butter has been added, knead the dough again on medium speed until it passes the "windowpane test" a second time.
5. Proof the dough [3+ hours] - Shape the dough into a ball and let it rise for one hour at room temperature, then at least two hours in the fridge.

What to expect when adding butter: Each time you add a new piece of butter, your dough will fall apart a little bit, it might slide around in the bowl or fall off the dough hook, but just let the mixer keep running and it will come back together. You're asking the gluten network to incorporate quite a lot of fat at this stage — be patient!

At the end of each mixing stage, the dough will be slightly sticky, but should clear the sides of the bowl. After all the butter has been added, if the dough is clinging to the walls of the bowl, you can, dust in more flour 1 tablespoon at a time.

Passing the windowpane test

The "windowpane test" is a way of checking how well developed the gluten network in your dough is. Tear off a tiny piece of dough, about the size of a grape. Coat it with flour and use your thumbs and fingers to gently press it into a flat shape from the center out. When you can stretch it quite thin in the center without it tearing, you've passed the windowpane test.

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The first babka dough rise

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover it, let it rise at room temperature for one hour. It should just about double in size at this stage. Depending on how cold or warm your kitchen is, and the temperature of the milk you used, this may happen quickly or may take a bit longer.

Pro-tip: If your kitchen is quite cool, you may want to move the bowl into your oven (turned off) but with the oven light on. This will give the yeast a nice, warm environment to get to work.

Once it has doubled in size, place it in the fridge for another 2 hours or even overnight. Don't take it out of the fridge until you're ready to start rolling and shaping your apples and honey babka. You want all that soft butter you added to the dough to be firm (and not sticky!) when you roll the dough out.

Easy apple butter filling

Rolling, cutting, twisting, and shaping your babka dough is challenging enough — there's no point in overcomplicating it by also trying to make apple butter from scratch. Store bought apple butter with a bit of cinnamon and honey is all you need for a great babka filling.

You can even make the apple butter filling a few days in advance and store it in the fridge until you're ready to use it..

Important: Make sure you have the apples, walnuts, and apple butter filling for your apples and honey babka ready before you start rolling out your dough. You don't want the dough to warm up and start rising again while you prep the filling!

Assembling and shaping your apples and honey babka

Clear off a nice big stretch of counter or table space for this step. It's going to get messy, so don't do this on grandma's nice vintage dining table or whatever. Lightly dust your work surface with flour, then transfer the dough from the bowl to the countertop. Dust the top of the dough lightly with flour as well.

Deflate the chilled dough to knock any air out of it. Then gently stretch it dough into a rough rectangle shape, and use a rolling pin to roll it out into a 20" long rectangle about ¼" thick.

Tips for rolling dough:

• If the dough fights back or starts to tear, let it relax for 30 seconds and then keep going.
• Start with your rolling pin in the center of the dough and roll outwards, rather than trying to roll the pin across the entire length of dough with each pass.
• Use a bench scraper to square off the dough as you roll to help keep the rectangle shape.
• Dust on more flour or rotate and flip the dough as needed to prevent it from sticking and keep an even thickness.

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It's okay if you don't have a perfect rectangle or if you end up with something a little bigger or are slightly off in your dimensions. The important measurement to achieve is that ¼" thickness. Once you shape the babka, it still has to rise one more time, and the dough will almost double in size. So if you start with dough that's ½" thick... well, you get the idea.

Spread your apple-butter filling across the surface of the dough leaving one long edge bare. Once you've got a thin, even layer of apple butter, sprinkle on your minced apples (and optional walnuts) trying to distribute them as evenly as possible.

To roll the babka: Start with one of the bottom corners and begin rolling it up, moving across the long side of the dough from one side to the other. Roll tightly, trying not to trap any air bubbles inside. Repeat until your dough rectangle is rolled into a log. This will get easier as you go.

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PRO-TIP: Once you roll the dough into a log, place it on a sheet pan and chill it in the fridge for an hour or two before shaping. The dough warms up quite a bit while you're rolling it and the next step is MUCH easier and less messy if the dough is chilled. (The recipe will still work if you skip this step, but do so at your peril!)

twisting your apples and honey babka

Okay. This is the hard part. This is the part where you will definitely curse at least once and wonder if you've made a huge mistake (you haven't). Bear with me, because I promise it will all work out in the end.

Take a knife or a metal bench scraper with a sharp edge and cut lengthwise down the middle of the rolled dough log. You're creating two long thin strips, revealing all the layers inside. Yes, you're right, it will get messy. How'd you guess?

Turn the two strips so that the inside layers are facing up. Starting in the middle, cross one strip over the other to form an X shape. Continue crossing the two strips of dough over each other until one half of the dough is twisted. Repeat this process with the other half of the dough strips so you have a fully twisted rope of babka.

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Why start twisting from the middle? It's a lot easier to pick up and cross shorter pieces of dough over each other. If you started at one end of the dough, you'd be trying to handle almost 20" of gooey, apple-butter filled dough at once. This way you can work in smaller sections which is easier, less stressful, and gives you a more uniform twist.

How to make a round spiral babka

Bend one end of the babka in toward itself, tucking the end under. Then wrap the other end of the twisted babka rope around the folded bit to create the spiral. Again, tuck the end under. The babka will seem lopsided at this point, but that's okay — it'll settle down during the final rise.

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The final round babka rise

Cover the coiled babka loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest while you scrub all the ooey-gooey apple butter filling off your hands and wipe down your counters. Let the babka rest at room temperature for 1-1½ hours.

During this time, the babka should nearly double in size — it will grow outwards as well as upwards as it rests. If you've gone the loaf-pan route, the dough should crown slightly over the top of the pan.

During the last 15 minutes of this resting period, begin preheating your oven to 375F. If your oven takes longer than 15 minutes to preheat, don't sweat it — the babka can continue rising until the oven is ready.

Baking your apples and honey babka

Your apple and honey babka will bake for about 30-40 minutes total. Let it bake uncovered for the first 25-30 minutes, then loosely cover it with a sheet of aluminum foil for the rest of the bake to prevent the sides and edges from getting too dark.

When your babka is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool slightly on the sheet pan. Then, carefully use your hands or the largest spatula you have to lift the babka onto a wire cooling rack.

The honey icing drizzle

This is a simple mixture of soft butter, honey, and powdered sugar. Make sure the butter is super soft here or your icing will be lumpy.

Let your babka cool completely before you do the drizzle. If the dough is hot or warm, the icing will melt and slide off the dough. To drizzle it, use a fork or even the whisk you used to mix the icing to drag long ropes of it across the babka in a zig-zag shape.

To move the babka off the cooling rack and onto your serving platter be confident, move quickly, and don't let it see the fear in your eyes. Another option is to cut it in half, in quarters, or wedges/slices, and then move it onto the serving tray.

Apples and honey babka FAQ

This post was originally published on 9/25/2019.