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Apr 7 (edited) • 🥖 Saturday Bake Along
Most of the bread we bake around here is lean. Flour, water, salt, and either yeast or a sourdough starter. That's it. Clean, simple, honest.
Enriched dough is something different.
When you add fat, eggs, sugar, or dairy to a dough, you've crossed into enriched territory. And everything changes when you do that.
The fat coats the gluten strands and slows their development, which is why enriched doughs need more mixing time and often more patience. The eggs add structure and richness and give you that golden crumb you see in brioche and babka. The sugar feeds the yeast but also competes with it, which is why enriched doughs ferment slower than lean ones. The milk adds flavor and tenderness that water simply can't.
Here's why this matters for you this week: we're baking babka this Saturday. Babka is an enriched dough. Understanding what's happening inside that dough is what separates a baker who follows a recipe from a baker who understands what they're doing.
This week we're going to learn the whole picture. The windowpane test. The cold retard. The filling. The shaping. The bake.
By Sunday you'll have a loaf worth sharing and a set of skills you can use on brioche, cinnamon rolls, challah, and milk bread for the rest of your life.
Pick your path now so you're ready by Friday.
Path A: Sourdough Chocolate Babka
All are in the Recipe Pantry. But don't rely solely on me. Do your homework. See what's out there that might interest you beyond what I'm supplying. Let's have a conversation Bring what you find interesting and we'll talk about it.
See you Saturday.
Henry ⭐🔥
18
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Most of the bread we bake around here is lean. Flour, water, salt, and either yeast or a sourdough starter. That's it. Clean, simple, honest.
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