Blueberry Cheesecake Babka

Hello, hello! This babka was a creation out of necessity. Robby's birthday was this week, and he had said for a while that he had wanted a korovai for his birthday. If you're unfamiliar with what that is, it's a HIGHLY decorated sweet bread tower that looks like a cake traditionally made in Eastern Europe. He told me not to worry about the decorations, but that he most definitely wanted a bread tower.

As we discussed flavors, and I scoured Pinterest, I realized that I'd have to essentially create a lot of my own recipes but that I could use other recipes as my springboard. Thus the Blueberry Cheesecake Babka (or couronne) was born. The "springboard recipe" is here: Babka Bread filled with Blueberry Jam. I followed it closely (but I'll still list steps below), and then added a cheesecake filling component. Robby said it tasted just like a blueberry danish - success!

The other two doughs I created were a coffee chocolate chip tear-and-share, and an almond vanilla loaf. These didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, mostly because I followed the bake times for the springboard recipes instead of for what I was creating.

Some important notes on this recipe:

1. I doubled the recipe to make more of a couronne that would serve as the base for this korovai. Spoiler: it turned out HUGE. Mammoth is the more correct word, I think.

2. Because I was doing a couronne shape, I wrapped it around on a pizza stone and baked it that way. To keep it from filling in too much, I put a cake tin in the middle. Even when greasing both the tin and the stone, the bread still stuck pretty strongly to both. This, I found out, was because of the filling oozing out and not the bread itself.

3. Make sure to cook the filling until it thickens! This is probably the most important thing because I did it for the minimum time the recipe suggests and not until it thickened, and I had a huge mess when assembling. Not to mention large sections of babka without filling. #annoying It's a jam, so it should thicken like one!

4. There are enough variations in this recipe that I don't feel the need to differentiate. You're welcome to read their recipe, which is very close to the one I have below. I did what I normally do when I make bread with their recipe in mind, and so have written it as I've done. They also used a stand mixer to knead their bread dough - you're more than welcome to do that, but I prefer doing it by hand.

---

Blueberry Cheesecake Babka or Couronne

(cut ingredients by half to make one loaf)

Ingredients for the bread

• 160 g granulated sugar

• 16 g instant yeast

• 300 ml milk, room temperature

• 160 g butter, room temperature or melted

• 1000 g bread flour

• 4 eggs, room temperature

• 1 tsp kosher salt

Ingredients for the Blueberry Jam

• 600 g fresh blueberries

• 400 g granulated sugar

• 2 tsp vanilla

• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Ingredients for the Cheesecake Filling

• 16 oz cream cheese, room temperature

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 2 large eggs, room temperature

• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 4 tsp all-purpose flour

Instructions

Bread dough

1. Dissolve the sugar into the warm milk with a whisk. Once fully dissolved, add in yeast, and cover loosely for about 10 minutes or until yeast has started to activate (foaming and bubbling).

2. In a medium bowl, mix in the flour, salt, and butter. Then, add the eggs and yeast mix and combine with hands. Once just combined, cover with a towel and let rest for 20-30 minutes.

3. Turn dough out onto an unfloured surface and knead with hands for about 10-15 minutes, or until it has smoothed and slackened. It wasn't abundantly stretchy for me, but it had more give than when it was initially mixed together.

4. Place in a bowl, and cover loosely with a towel, and let it rise in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size. I put my dough in my oven, turned off, with the oven light on. It took approximately 90 minutes to double. *MAKE FILLINGS DURING THIS RESTING PERIOD*

5. Once doubled, turn dough out onto an unfloured surface and, using a dough cutter or large knife, cut dough into two equal pieces. Using a rolling pin, roll dough out each piece, one at a time, into a rectangle approximately 9"x16" and about one inch thick.

6. Spread the fillings onto the dough, leaving about half an inch free on one of the longer sides. You can layer the cheesecake and jam, or mix them together (whatever your preference is). Then, roll the dough by the longest side ending on the side with the filling gap. Place the log on a cookie sheet and sit in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.

7. Remove the log from the freezer and, using a knife, cut the log down the middle into two pieces, leaving just the end connected. Now, you want to plait the strands, alternating each over and under. Once completed, wrap around on your pizza stone. If making just one loaf, tuck this into a greased loaf pan, bending the log so it fits to your liking in the pan. If doing a couronne or large babka, repeat steps 5-7 for the other half of your dough.

8. Cover the loaf/loaves loosely with a towel and let rise a second time in a warm place for about 45 min to an hour until doubled in size.

9. During the last 15 minutes of rising, remove loaf from the oven (if that's where you're keeping it), and preheat your oven to 375. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, until the loaf is a darker golden brown on the outside and the dough is cooked on the inside.

Blueberry Jam

• Put all the ingredients into a small pan over medium heat and stir everything until it begins to cook. Then, let sauce cook until thickened. Transfer to a bowl and place in the refrigerator to cool.

Cheesecake Filling

• Using a mixer, combine cream cheese, vanilla extract, and eggs on the lowest setting. Then, slowly incorporate both sugar and flour until well-combined. You can add more vanilla if you'd like a stronger vanilla flavor. Place filling in the fridge to firm up while your bread rises.

Enjoy!!