You may be familiar with sweet babka (a braided bread, often swirled with chocolate and traditionally served on Easter Sunday), but we've given it a savoury twist with a delicious basil and garlic butter.
Serve warm as is with lashings of butter or use as a base to elevate your favourite picnic sandwich. It also makes a great accompaniment to fresh pasta dishes like this simple summer lasagne and crowd-pleasing courgette and tomato pasta bake.
Find more of our most popular picnic recipes for summer lunching.
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Yields:
10 serving(s)
Prep Time:
40 mins
Cook Time:
50 mins
Total Time:
1 hr 30 mins
Cal/Serv:
328
Ingredients
For the dough
450g
strong white flour, plus extra to dust
7g
fast-action dried yeast
75g
unsalted butter, melted, plus extra to grease
250ml
milk
For the filling
100g
unsalted butter, softened
3
garlic cloves, crushed
100g
basil, leaves and stalks
For the glaze
2Tbsp.
runny honey
Directions
Step 1For the dough, in a freestanding mixer fitted with a dough hook, or in a large bowl with a wooden spoon, mix the flour, yeast and 1/2tsp fine salt. Add the melted butter and milk and mix to form a dough. If making by hand, tip on to a lightly floured work surface. Knead by hand or on medium speed for 5-10min, until smooth and elastic. Return to the bowl, if needed, cover and leave to rise in a warm place for 1hr 30 min, or until doubled in size.
Step 2Lightly grease a 900g loaf tin. For the filling, in a food processor whizz the butter, garlic, basil and plenty of seasoning until fairly smooth.
Step 3Tip the dough on to a lightly floured work surface and roll out to a rough 30 x 40cm rectangle. Spread the filling over the top of the dough. Roll up tightly from a long edge, then slice in 1/2 lengthways to make 2 long pieces with the filling exposed.
Step 4Lay the pieces side-by-side with the filling facing upwards. Lightly press 2 of the ends together, then twist the lengths into each other, by lifting 1 piece over the other repeatedly, making sure you keep the filling exposed.
Step 5Once you have a long, twisted length, push both ends simultaneously into the centre to shorten the length slightly. Lift and squeeze it into the greased tin (it will seem too big but will fit!).
Step 6Loosely cover with greased clingfilm (butter-side down) and leave to rise again in a warm place for 1hr 30min-2hr, or until noticeably puffed.
Step 7Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan) mark 4. Bake the babka for 45-50min, or until deep golden (loosely cover with foil if browning too quickly).
Step 8As soon as the babka comes out of the oven, brush the honey over the top of the babka to glaze. Leave to cool completely in the tin before transferring to a board. Serve in slices.
Get ahead
Make, knead and cover dough up to a day ahead. Chill (no need to rinse). To serve, allow dough to come to room temperature and rise. Complete recipe.
To store
Once cool, wrap well in foil and keep at room temperature for up to 2 days.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
