While cooking, listen to this: Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right - Bob Dylan

Every single year, without fail, I end up having a conversation that goes in one of two ways:

“Oh my god, I cannot believe how early the high holidays are this year!”

“Oh my god, I cannot believe how late the high holidays are this year!”

They never seem to be on time, do they? I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say, “Wow, Rosh Hashana is just spot on this year. Perfect timing!” They always feel unexpected, even though they have happened literally every single year for like, thousands of years.

This year especially, it feels like Rosh Hashana came out of left field. To be perfectly honest, it feels like April-September came out of left field, but I am utterly gobsmacked/flabbergasted/bambooozled that Rosh Hashana is this Friday.

This. Friday.

I think my mind is somewhere back before Passover, how can it already be Rosh Hashana?

I think that idea of the holidays just coming in and smacking you in the face is what’s keeping me grounded, funnily enough. With the literal and figurative hellfire the world currently feels like, that attitude towards the holidays is something consistent, something from “the time before.” The world in every possible way, especially here in the US, feels completely different and insane, but leave it to Judaism to snap me out of it and remind me that some things are still the same. No matter what’s going on in our lives or the world, no matter how scary or dangerous or just batshit crazy, we will always stop to exclaim “oh my god how is it already Rosh Hashana?!” and buy every single apple in a five mile range.

I remember at the start of all this, making banana bread or sourdough was THE thing to do, but baking projects seem to have fallen by the wayside now that people are going back to work or (ugh) school or are just stuck in a never-ending feedback loop of binging Netflix and the news that they can’t escape. Might I suggest starting the new [Jewish] year off with an intense, rewarding baking project that doesn’t involve a single tweet or Zoom link?

I had never made babka before, but it was always on my list of recipes I wanted to try but needed to woman up a bit first. Now that Rosh Hashana is here (again, WOW WOW TRULY HOW), we decided that stuffing a beautiful babka dough with homemade applesauce was the perfect way to ring in a new, hopefully better, year. We added in a sprinkling of white chocolate chips because clearly this recipe didn’t have enough sugar.

It’s festive. It’s violently autumnal. It’s divine. And it can be in your house right now!

Well, in about 24 hours. The dough rises for like, a literal day.

But still!

With what will probably be the strangest high holiday season of our lives around the corner, we’re thinking of you and wishing you a very sweet, albeit more virtual than we would have thought or liked, new year.

Next year in Jerusalem, or at the very least, next year together.

Love and meows,

Rina

APPLE BUTTER + WHITE CHOCOLATE BABKA

Yield: 2 babka loaves

Active Cook Time: 45m | Rising Time: 6h, preferably overnight | Inactive Cook Time: 3 1/2-4h

Category: Baked, Sweet, Rosh Hashana, Fall

Source: babka dapted from smitten kitchen, which was adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi; filling from Destination Delish

Special Equipment: stand-mixer with dough hook attachment; microplane or zester; high-speed blender, immersion blender or potato masher (all optional)

Note, Part 1: Plan in advance! While it’s possible to make this recipe all in one day, it’s best to prep the dough the day before you intend to bake the babka.

Note, Part 2: We use a mix of granny smith and honeycrisp apples to get a sweet-tart vibe. Use your favorites if this doesn’t a-peel to you (I am so sorry).

Ingredients

dough:

4 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, plus more to dust

½ cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons instant yeast

Grated zest of 1 lemon or ½ orange

3 large eggs

½ cup water, plus 1-2 Tablespoons more if needed

¾ teaspoon fine sea salt

⅔ cup unsalted butter, room temp

Sunflower or other neutral oil for greasing

filling:

4 medium apples (see note above)

juice from 1 small lemon, plus more to taste

2 cups water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup light or dark brown sugar, lightly packed

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

tiny pinch salt

½ cup white chocolate chips (NOT in filling)

syrup:

⅓ cup water

6 Tablespoons granulated sugar

Instructions

Make the dough: in the bowl of your stand mixer, add the flour, sugar, yeast and zest of choice and mix. Add the eggs and ½ cup water and mix with the dough hook until fully combined. If it looks a little dry, add water 1 tablespoon at a time and mix until the dough comes together. Mixing on low, add the salt and then the butter one bit at a time, waiting until the butter is incorporated before adding more. Once all the butter is in there, mix on medium speed for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and pulling away from the bowl. This sounds like a wild amount of time, but it needs a while in there. Scrape down the sides of the bowl once in a while to help it out, and add flour 1 Tablespoon at a time if it’s looking a little sticky.

Proof the dough: coat a large bowl with oil (a new bowl or the one used for the dough) and place the dough inside. Cover with plastic wrap and stick in the fridge for at least 6 hours, ideally overnight.

Make the filling: core, peel and chop the apples. If you’re going for a smooth consistency at the end, the size of the apple pieces doesn’t matter. If you like some bits in there (like we do), try to keep the pieces as even as possible, about 1-inch or so. In a medium saucepan add the apples, lemon juice, water, vanilla, brown sugar, cinnamon nutmeg and tiniest pinch of salt. Stir to combine and bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn down to a simmer and let cook for 35 minutes, stirring once in a while to make sure it isn’t burning on the bottom. Cook for 10 minutes more, or until the sauce has gotten thick and most of the apple pieces have mushed together.

Blend/mash/leave alone: if you like a smooth filling, use an immersion blender directly in the pan or transfer to a high-speed blender to blend until smooth. If you like some texture, use a potato masher to lightly mash into a desired consistency. You can also just leave it alone! Allow to cool before using.

Prepare loaves: grease two 9 x 4 loaf pans with neutral oil or butter, and line the bottoms with rectangles of parchment paper. Take half of the dough from the fridge (leave the other half in there). Dust your work surface with a hefty amount of flour and roll the dough until it’s about 10 x 10 inches (I am terrible at spatial reasoning as you all know by now so I am the last one to tell you this needs to be perfect). Spread half of the applesauce over the dough, making sure to leave a ½ inch border on all sides. Sprinkle the white chocolate chips on top, adding more if you’d like.

Roll up: brush the end farthest away from you with some water. Roll the dough away from you into a tight snake and use the damp end to seal the roll. You can take Deb’s advice and stick the snake in the freezer on a floured cookie sheet for 10-15m to make it easier to cut. This gives the snake a nice home while you make the other half, which you’ll do now!

Assemble! Again, I am REAL bad at spatial reasoning so Alyssa is the only reason these came out. For loaf #1, trim ½ inch off both ends of the log. Gently cut the log in half lengthwise and lay the two halves next to each other cut-sides up. Pinch the top ends gently together, then lift one side on top of the other to form a nice twist (two lifts should suffice, and keep the cut sides facing out.). This is going to make a MAJOR mess so you are doing it right if your workspace is now covered in apple filling. Carefully transfer the twist to your prepared loaf pan. I stuck my trimmed ends at the top and bottom of my pan because that’s where they fit; you can place them wherever you have space, or you can bake them off separately in their own little homes.

Proof, again: cover the loaf with a damp towel and let rise for 1-1 ½ hours at room temperature. Repeat assembly process with second loaf.

Bake and glaze: Preheat the oven to 375F. Remove towels and bake loaves on middle rack of oven for 25-30m. Sage wisdom from Deb: “A skewer inserted into an underbaked babka will feel stretchy/rubbery inside and may come back with dough on it. When fully baked, you’ll feel almost no resistance.” If your babka needs more time, bake in 5 minute intervals, checking on them each time. If your babkas are browning too quickly (which happened to us), cover them with foil as they bake.

Make syrup: while the babkas are in the oven, add the sugar and water to a saucepan and simmer until the sugar dissolves. Allow to cool while the babkas are baking. The minute you take them out of the oven, brush liberally with the syrup. It’ll seem like way too much, but the babkas will soak it all up and they will taste and look amazing. Let them cool for a while in the pans, then you can transfer them to cooling racks and allow to cool all the way, or dig right in.

To keep: you can keep these in the fridge for a few days, but if you’re making them in advance (like my mom), they keep beautifully in the freezer.