Love this idea!! Will def try this next time I find time to make babka :p
A side note on flaky scallion oil pancakes and dimsum: in China they are rarely seen together too because the former is a northern dish whereas dimsum is from Canton (my hometown :D)... so the pancakes aren’t actually a type of dimsum, but a main/side dish in other provinces.
Have been planning to make babka for ages. Could I make one like this and one sweet version if I split the dough in half after the bulk fermentation stage?
This went down so well I made it twice in 3 days! The first loaf I was prepared and made exactly to the recipe with the spring onion and sesame filling which was INSANE (also chilled dough overnight).
For the second loaf I didn’t have any spring onions or sesame seeds and had less time, so made a marmite and cheese filling inspired by the pophams marmite croissant (sub spring onions & sesame sadly) which was also delicious! (didn’t chill dough overnight but straight after the first prove I did pop it in the fridge for an hour or so without punching down to make handling a bit easier).
If anyone’s interested in the marmite filling, I beat 50g unsalted butter (very soft) with 20-25g marmite and 1 tsp dark muscovado, spread that over the dough and then sprinkled over 20g finely grated Parmesan and 75-80g mature cheddar.
(I reckon this would be delicious using different cheeses too and including sesame seeds and spring onion a la pophams if you have them!)
I’m struggling with the burnt spring onion oil. What’s throwing me off is “a little oil for frying.” (And for that matter, no indication of how hot the burner should be might be playing a role. I went with high-ish since the goal is to completely blacken them.) I did everything by weight except for the oil I tried a few tablespoons.
Since the sesame oil is only a few teaspoons, and pretty much all the onion liquid gets evaporated from the blackening, and the soy sauce is so little that it basically instantly evaporates when added, I am not left with anything resembling an oil and definitely nothing that could be spread on anything. The soy sauce is not even able to deglaze the pan. It’s just a totally black dry-ish pan with some charred onions. Putting the sugar in just creates something clumpy.
In an attempt to salvage it, I put it back on the burner, added much more oil so there’s something to infuse into, and had to add and cook off some water to deglaze it. But because the sugar was already in it at this point, it wasn’t totally clear to me if I truly cooked off all the water or if it was just the sugar bubbling.
I’m also a bit confused by the GIFs wrt the oil. The one where the onions are being cooked in the oil doesn’t look like much more oil than I used, but it’s hard to tell. The onions also do not get particularly black in any of the GIFs, so I don’t know if my understanding of totally blackened is too literal or if only the beginning of the process is being shown, but then, it looks quite black when spread so I dunno.
I feel like there has to be some minimum amount of oil present for it to be infused and spread, and I would conceive of that being much more than “a little oil for frying” and that the amount ought to be somewhat important because there’s a big difference between infusing a bunch of onions in a few tablespoons of oil versus a fourth a cupe or more, but I also feel like I must be missing or misunderstanding something huge.
Want to give this a go but with my vegan babka recipe. It requires a syrup soak when its out of the oven, but obviously I cant do this with a savoury babka 😂 Anyone have any suggestions? I worry it would end up too dry/very short shelf life without the soak.
has anyone tried shaping as babka buns/knots? I've seen sweet babka shaped similarly to kanelbullar and cinnamon buns (first ones coming to mind both by Edd Kimber - choc tahini in OTB and choc pistachio for olive magazine) but curious as to how it would turn out with the tangzhong dough!
Gosh I can imagine a couple of slices of this would be ace in a toasted breakfast sandwich!
Love this idea!! Will def try this next time I find time to make babka :p
A side note on flaky scallion oil pancakes and dimsum: in China they are rarely seen together too because the former is a northern dish whereas dimsum is from Canton (my hometown :D)... so the pancakes aren’t actually a type of dimsum, but a main/side dish in other provinces.
Have been planning to make babka for ages. Could I make one like this and one sweet version if I split the dough in half after the bulk fermentation stage?
I love how you’d come out of a long shift at work to make spring onion pancakes - I feel like I’d be so tired it would be a bowl of cereal for me
This went down so well I made it twice in 3 days! The first loaf I was prepared and made exactly to the recipe with the spring onion and sesame filling which was INSANE (also chilled dough overnight).
For the second loaf I didn’t have any spring onions or sesame seeds and had less time, so made a marmite and cheese filling inspired by the pophams marmite croissant (sub spring onions & sesame sadly) which was also delicious! (didn’t chill dough overnight but straight after the first prove I did pop it in the fridge for an hour or so without punching down to make handling a bit easier).
If anyone’s interested in the marmite filling, I beat 50g unsalted butter (very soft) with 20-25g marmite and 1 tsp dark muscovado, spread that over the dough and then sprinkled over 20g finely grated Parmesan and 75-80g mature cheddar.
(I reckon this would be delicious using different cheeses too and including sesame seeds and spring onion a la pophams if you have them!)
Sounds so good. Is the recipe for 5g fresh or dried yeast?
I’m struggling with the burnt spring onion oil. What’s throwing me off is “a little oil for frying.” (And for that matter, no indication of how hot the burner should be might be playing a role. I went with high-ish since the goal is to completely blacken them.) I did everything by weight except for the oil I tried a few tablespoons.
Since the sesame oil is only a few teaspoons, and pretty much all the onion liquid gets evaporated from the blackening, and the soy sauce is so little that it basically instantly evaporates when added, I am not left with anything resembling an oil and definitely nothing that could be spread on anything. The soy sauce is not even able to deglaze the pan. It’s just a totally black dry-ish pan with some charred onions. Putting the sugar in just creates something clumpy.
In an attempt to salvage it, I put it back on the burner, added much more oil so there’s something to infuse into, and had to add and cook off some water to deglaze it. But because the sugar was already in it at this point, it wasn’t totally clear to me if I truly cooked off all the water or if it was just the sugar bubbling.
I’m also a bit confused by the GIFs wrt the oil. The one where the onions are being cooked in the oil doesn’t look like much more oil than I used, but it’s hard to tell. The onions also do not get particularly black in any of the GIFs, so I don’t know if my understanding of totally blackened is too literal or if only the beginning of the process is being shown, but then, it looks quite black when spread so I dunno.
I feel like there has to be some minimum amount of oil present for it to be infused and spread, and I would conceive of that being much more than “a little oil for frying” and that the amount ought to be somewhat important because there’s a big difference between infusing a bunch of onions in a few tablespoons of oil versus a fourth a cupe or more, but I also feel like I must be missing or misunderstanding something huge.
Want to give this a go but with my vegan babka recipe. It requires a syrup soak when its out of the oven, but obviously I cant do this with a savoury babka 😂 Anyone have any suggestions? I worry it would end up too dry/very short shelf life without the soak.
has anyone tried shaping as babka buns/knots? I've seen sweet babka shaped similarly to kanelbullar and cinnamon buns (first ones coming to mind both by Edd Kimber - choc tahini in OTB and choc pistachio for olive magazine) but curious as to how it would turn out with the tangzhong dough!
I cannot convey how delicious this is. Made the fullsized one and stuck it in an 8" round tin, and it was perfect. Another cracker, thanks Nicola!
Hey, can this be hand kneaded if you don’t have a stand mixer? How long would you recommend?
Chilli oil to dip or fry spring onions in it? Or spread gochujang on dough? Anyway I’m starting this tonight
Oh yummmmmm!!’
This is absolutely the dream!! So excited to try.