The Furlough Finish: Cinnamon-Raisin-Walnut Babka

After making five loaves of The Famous Chocolate Babka from Breaking Breads, I decided to try the Cinnamon-Raisin-Walnut Babka for a change of pace. It uses the same dough (I used the basic babka dough that is not laminated) and assembly method, except that instead of filling the dough with Nutella and chocolate chips, it's filled with softened butter, cinnamon sugar, walnuts, and raisins. The great shine on the loaf in the photo below comes from the simple syrup brushed on while the loaf is still warm.

I thought these loaves were beautiful and the bread tasted great. However, I couldn't help but compare this babka to the chocolate version and there's really no comparison -- a babka filled with a generous layer of Nutella and chocolate chips is so much more indulgent and satisfying than one with cinnamon, raisins, and walnuts. But this is some tasty babka.

So this is my last blog post about my furlough baking. I feel like I wasn't nearly as productive (baking-wise, that is) during this most recent furlough as I was during my furlough in the fall of 2013. The 2013 government shutdown was less than half as long as the 2018-19 shutdown, but as I look at my list of completed baking projects from my 2013 furlough (included at the bottom of this post), my list of baking accomplishments during the recent furlough seems quite meager by comparison (see below). Although to be fair, Tom and I were on vacation in Mexico for nine of the 35 days of the recent government shutdown, so I wasn't able to bake during a decent chunk of it. And at least I did use up every last bit of my pound of fresh yeast; it only took me about two and a half weeks to get through it. Here's the final tally of my furlough baking projects:

Projects using fresh yeast -- a full pound of the stuff!:

• Two batches (two dozen) Cinnamon Swirls from Meyer's Bakery
• One batch Franzbrötchen (Cinnamon-Sugar Buns) from Classic German Baking
• One batch (two loaves) of The Famous Chocolate Babka made with Basic Babka Dough from Breaking Breads
• One batch (three loaves) of The Famous Chocolate Babka made with Advanced Babka Dough from Breaking Breads
• One loaf Schweizer Zopf (Swiss Braid) from Classic German Baking
• Two batches (two dozen) Blueberry Swirls from Meyer's Bakery 
• One batch (one dozen) Sticky Cinnamon Buns from Meyer's Bakery
• One batch (three loaves) Challah from Breaking Breads
• One batch (three loaves) Marzipan Challah from Breaking Breads
• One batch (two loaves) of Cinnamon-Raisin-Walnut Babka made with Basic Babka Dough from Breaking Breads
• One batch of Brötchen (Classic Breakfast Rolls) from Classic German Baking (there's no blog post on this recipe because the rolls didn't turn out at all for me; I would have tried the recipe a second time but I literally used up my last ten grams of fresh yeast during my first attempt)

Other baking projects:

• Maida Heatter's Mile-High Cinnamon Bread
• McKenna's S'mores Birthday Cake
• Two Hazelnut Gâteaux Breton 
• Pistachio Bundt Cake from All About Cake
• One loaf of Banana Bread (recipe available here at Leite's Culinaria) (the bread was just okay and I didn't bother blogging about it)
• Dorothy's Key Lime Pie Cake from All About Cake
• One batch (one dozen) Beautiful Hamburger Buns from King Arthur Flour

Recipe: "Basic Babka Dough" and "Cinnamon-Raisin-Walnut Babka" from Breaking Breads by Uri Scheft

Previous Post: "Does More Butter Make a Better Babka?: The Famous Chocolate Babka," April 6, 2019.