A few people have kindly asked after the recipe for the quadruple-braided 'baklavabka' brioche I posted recently; here it is after baking, glazing, and sprinkling with pistachio:
Image 1: the finished 'baklavabka.'
'Baklavabka' came about as I sought to bake more things that Jenny, who doesn't favor sweets, would enjoy--and I assumed, as it turns out rightly, that students and colleagues would continue to eat leftovers no matter what. Jenny had enjoyed a babka with traditional chocolate filling, a sweet extension of liking braided loaves, including challah.
And so I thought to combine the idea of babka, a bit more involved braiding, and filling modeled on baklava, since Jenny is of Greek extraction--and again, with Classics students and colleagues ... The result of course is baklavabka.
BAKLAVABKA (braided brioche with baklava-style filling)
1) brioche dough (800g, c. 1.75 lbs)
For this recipe I've used Tartine's but I also really like Jeffrey Hamelman's (Bread). Probably any brioche dough would do--you might make sure it's mousseline, with 50%+ butter relative to weight of flour--and indeed a laminated / croissant pastry would also be good. Since brioche recipes are so commonly available, I don't include one here.
Once the dough is mixed, risen, and rested (refrigerated overnight), on a floured work surface, roll the dough out into a rectangle c. 1 x 3.5 in size (20 x 70 cm, c. 8 x 28 in) and c. 6 mm (c. .25 in) in thickness.
2) baklava-style filling (c. 415g, c. .9 lb.) & shaping into a roll
Here again I've drawn deeply on Tartine, but any equivalently textured filling would do: a soft-to-medium paste (c. 40% butter & water relative to weight of dry ingredients) whose particles are mostly of even size (finely chopped / blitzed) but including some small-to-medium-sized pieces of nuts (perhaps 10% of total weight of nuts).
pistachios 143g
walnuts 85g
sugar, granulated 70g
cinnamon 1 tsp (or to taste)
cardamom .5 tsp (or to taste)
salt .5 tsp
orange zest 1 Tbsp
lemon zest .5 tsp
lemon juice 1 Tbsp
melted butter 113g
orange-blossom water 1 Tbsp
In a food processor, combine pistachios, walnuts, sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, salt, orange and lemon zest, and lemon juice. Pulse until the ingredients are roughly mixed and the nuts are medium ground. Pour in melted butter and orange-blossom water, then pulse further until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed and the nuts are mostly finely ground. Refrigerate until cool.
Once the dough is rolled out and the filling is cooled, spread the filling evenly over the dough, leaving a narrow margin on all four sides (c. 6mm, c. .25 in). Then, starting from one corner of a long side, carefully and pretty tightly roll the filled dough into a long tube. At this point you can gently stretch the dough just a bit in both long directions, lengthening, slightly narrowing, and smoothing out the tube, including smoothing out the seam and gently pinching the two open sides (where the inner spiral should be visible).
Once the tube is shaped, refrigerate to relax the dough, c. 30-60m.
3) slicing, braiding, and final rise
Once the tube is cooled and relaxed, place on a lightly floured work surface and, using a very sharp knife, slice lengthwise into two halves; each half should have a plain dough (bottom) side and a layered dough/filling (top) side.
At this point you can braid the two strands directly (duplex, 2-fold), or slice further into shorter lengths to have more strands and so a more complex braiding. If you want to braid the two strands directly, that's relatively straightforward, and there are lots of instructions available online.
If you want to replicate the bake pictured above, which is quadruple (4-fold), cut each of the two initial strands into two halves, NOT lengthwise but widthwise, i.e., down the middle, resulting in four strands each of c. 35cm length. Then braid as you would a 4-fold loaf, as pictured just below.
There are a lot of examples online, but so far as I've found, mostly numbering the strands (4 becomes 2, what is now 3 becomes 4, etc.), so I've used Play-Doh instead. With dough instead of Play-Doh, pinch the separate ends together at the start, and likewise pinch the remaining separate ends together at the finish.
Image 2: quadruple braid; from top to bottom, left to right = starting position, close-up of first crossover (1 and 4 cross over), then first through fourth braids (4 becomes 3, 2 becomes 4; 1 becomes 2, 3 becomes 1), which are repeated until the ends are reached.
Image 3: finished quadruple braid, left = top view, right = bottom view.
Once the dough is braided or otherwise shaped as you like, let it rise until roughly doubled in size, c. 2-3 hours depending on temperature and humidity. I like to let it rise in a TURNED OFF oven, with a pan of hot water on a lower rack; I refresh the hot water every 40 minutes or so to help prevent the rising dough from drying out and forming a firm crust.
4) baking: 205 C (400F) for 15m, then 190C (375F) for 10-20m (a gentle golden brown)
Pre-heat the oven to 205C (400 F) for 30-60m before baking; the bake does not require steam, but it won't hurt. Optionally, about 10m before baking, brush the plain-dough portions of the braid (not the exposed filling) with an egg wash: one egg whisked with c. .5 Tbsp heavy cream + a pinch of salt.
Bake at 205C (400F) for 15m, then lower the temperature to 190C (375F) and continue baking for 10-20m, or until the plain-dough portions are a gentle golden brown and/or a tester inserted into the braid comes out clean, without residue of unbaked / wet dough. It is easy to overbake, so I err slightly on the side of underbaked, letting it dry some in cooling.
To cool, let the braid cool for a bit, c. 10m, on the pan outside the oven, then carefully transfer to a wire rack. Let cool completely to room temperature.
5) toppings
Once the braid is cooled completely, glaze with a mixture of orange-blossom water and honey, then sprinkle with medium- to roughly-chopped pistachios.
For the glaze, mix 85g of honey with 30ml of orange-blossom water, then gently heat in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until thoroughly blended. Let cool completely, then brush onto the cooled braid. Sprinkle with the pistachios.
6) optional sous-chef
I cannot recommend this step on hygiene grounds.
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