Polish Easter babka calculator
Babka drożdżowa for Easter: a soft yeast dough on milk and yolks with raisins kneaded in, baked in a tube tin and iced with lemon.
Total hydration counts the water inside the eggs, milk and butter.
The Polish Easter babka is a tall yeast cake with raisins, baked in a fluted tube tin and iced with lemon. Not the New York chocolate babka on the other page: this dough is lighter, made on milk and yolks, and needs no overnight chilling.
How it works
The dough
AniaGotuje’s babka on 500 g of cake flour: 250 ml of warm milk (50%), 5 yolks (18%), 100 g of sugar, 100 g of soft butter (20% each), 150 g of raisins (30%) and 60 g of fresh yeast (12%). Half the milk, the yeast and a spoon of the sugar make a starter that stands 30 minutes; the other half of the milk soaks the raisins. Then everything is kneaded together for a few minutes, no more.
Rising and baking
Thirty minutes in a warm place, then into a buttered 22 cm tube tin for another 30 minutes: an hour and a half of rising in all, the starter included. 170 °C for 45 minutes, the oven door left ajar for 15 minutes afterwards, and out of the tin while still warm, upside down.
The icing
Five tablespoons of lemon juice, six heaped tablespoons of icing sugar and the zest of a lemon, rubbed smooth over a pan of simmering water and poured over the babka. Kwestia Smaku stirs hot lemon juice into 200 g of icing sugar and adds candied orange peel; Moje Wypieki pricks and soaks the cake first with the juice of two lemons and a little sweetened water or alcohol.
Sources & methodology
Every percentage in this calculator traces to the published sources below — nothing is invented. Where respected sources disagree, the default sits inside the documented range.
- AniaGotuje — Babka drożdżowa (z rodzynkami i lukrem) — The anchor: 500 g of cake flour, 250 ml of milk, five yolks, 100 g each of sugar and butter, 150 g of raisins, 60 g of fresh yeast; a 30-minute starter, 30 minutes in the bowl and 30 in a 22 cm tube tin, 45 minutes at 170 °C.
- Kwestia Smaku — Babka drożdżowa wielkanocna — The buttery end of the bands: 150 g of butter, three whole eggs, 40 g of sugar and 100 ml of milk on 370 g of flour with 50 g of fresh yeast; two 22 cm tins, an hour plus 40 minutes, 180 °C.
- Moje Wypieki — Wielkanocna baba drożdżowa z rodzynkami — Six yolks and a whole egg with 125 g of butter and 150 g of raisins on three to three and a half cups of flour; tins filled a third of the way, 170 °C, and a lemon soak.
- Moje Wypieki — Baba drożdżowa — The old baba on a kilo of flour with ten yolks and three potatoes, cited for its author’s advice: too much yeast rises fast and dries the crumb.
FAQ
Is 12% fresh yeast not too much?
It is the normal Polish dose for a fast, rich holiday dough: 60 g on 500 g at AniaGotuje, 50 g on 370 g (13.5%) at Kwestia Smaku. Moje Wypieki’s warning on her baba is worth keeping: more yeast than the recipe rises fast and dries the crumb. Switch the yeast type rather than the amount.
Whole eggs or yolks?
Yolks here, five of them. Kwestia Smaku uses three whole eggs on 370 g of flour with 150 g of butter, a much richer, more brioche-like dough; Moje Wypieki six yolks and one whole egg. All three work; yolks give the yellow crumb the babka is known for.
Why no salt?
AniaGotuje’s recipe has none. Kwestia Smaku and Moje Wypieki each add a pinch and weigh nothing, so there is no row; a pinch is fine.
How full should the tin be?
Moje Wypieki fills her tins a third of the way and lets the dough rise to the rim; Kwestia Smaku splits 370 g of flour between two 22 cm tins and gives them 40 minutes. The recipe here fills one 22 cm tube tin with about 1.25 kg of dough. A cold kitchen means a longer rise, not more yeast.
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