That Matcha Soda was amazingly good, but my quest to use up the leftover matcha powder continues. This Matcha Black Sesame Babka recipe made me remember an old episode of Seinfeld. I had never heard of babka until I saw the episode with Elaine and Jerry getting stuck with a “lesser babka” (cinnamon) when the bakery ran out of chocolate. I love chocolate and cinnamon, but this green and black babka was intriguing. And since I’m an obsessed rabbit mom, how could I pass up a recipe from a blog called Hungry Rabbit? Not a chance!
This babka is based on my research into infusing Asian flavors. After all, this is a Jewish-Chinese home that loves food from both sides of the union.
The Ingredients
This Matcha Black Sesame Babka recipe had plenty of things I keep around, so my pre-shopping kitchen check turned up a lot of ingredients. I had active dry yeast, unbleached all-purpose flour, matcha powder, fine sea salt, vanilla extract, granulated sugar, and water (of course!).
I had some honey and black sesame seeds, but not enough for this recipe. Onto my shopping last they went along with whole milk, eggs, and butter. Everything was in stock except black sesame seeds. I have bought them on the spice aisle before, so I know they normally stock them. I ended up ordering an 8-ounce bag for $6.99. It was more than enough for this recipe, and now I need to make some black sesame seed recipes!
Fun fact: Black sesame seeds are the same thing as white sesame seeds. What makes them black? The black hull, or outer layer, of the seed is left on. White sesame seeds are hulled, and the black outer layer is removed, revealing the white inner seed.
The Process
I’m still a bread noob, so I find these recipes a little challenging. And I love a good challenge! This Matcha Black Sesame Babka was challenging but in a good way.
Making the Dough
My Matcha Black Sesame Babka began with warming some liquid to proof the yeast. Most recipes I’ve made call for water and sugar, but this one used milk. Milk has sugars in it, so no extra was needed. All I had to do was warm a little milk in a small saucepan and add the yeast.
It wasn’t difficult, but the milk warmed fast! I had a thermometer in the pan, and I went a little over 110°F. It was easy to fix by removing the pan from the heat and letting it sit and cool slightly before adding the yeast, whisking in some of the flour, and letting the mixture stand for 20 minutes.
I switched the order of steps 3 and 4 to save some time, so I put the butter and sugar into my stand mixer. Then I moved on to mixing the dry ingredients, then whisking the vanilla and eggs. The timing would have been perfect if I hadn’t been taking photos of each step. I had to stop the stand mixer while I finished step 3.
When the photos were done, I began adding the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar. I was careful to add the eggs a little at a time and allow time to mix before adding more. I still ended up with a rather lumpy, unappetizing mixture. I’m not sure if that was intended, but I kept going despite my doubts.
Next, I added the flour mixture a little at a time, then the milk and yeast mixture. I did a lot of side scraping with a spatula despite using my paddle attachment with silicone scraper edges. Is it a scraper paddle? Spatula paddle? I think of it as a squeegee paddle, and I know that’s not the technical term.
But back to the dough! It took a while for the dough to pull away from the bowl. I thought I had made a mistake at first because the dough was very slack and wet. It came together after a few minutes of kneading, and I can’t tell you how relieved I was!
I had plenty of time to oil a mixing bowl while the dough kneaded in my stand mixer. When it was done, I transferred it to the oiled bowl, covered it tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerated it overnight.
I almost left it to the next day, but I decided to toast the sesame seeds. The filling is made with butter, so the sesame seeds need to be completely cooled. I didn’t want to risk them letting the butter and ruining the whole thing.
Making the Filling and Assembly
I was so excited to finish up my Matcha Black Sesame Babka when I woke up the next day! I practically ran to the kitchen to make my coffee and see how much the dough had risen. It wasn’t a lot, but there was another rise so I wasn’t worried.
I put the filling ingredients into my stand mixer and lined two loaf pans with parchment paper. I used avocado oil to get the parchment to stick to the sides of the pan. Just a little spray before adding each layer kept the paper from shifting and popping out of the pan. And spraying the parchment after the pan was fully lined kept it from sticking to the bread.
Next, I got to punch down the dough for the first time. It’s pretty much how it sounds LOL! I used my fist to press straight down into the risen dough several times to take the air out of it. It had to be divided in half, and I used my kitchen scale to make sure I was accurate.
Now it was time to roll out. I skipped a cutting board and floured my marble table since the finished size needed to be bigger than any of my cutting boards. It took some rolling since the dough was very elastic and kept snapping back! It ended up being very thin, but I was able to get it rolled out into a roughly 12″ x 20″ rectangle.
Spreading the filling was easy, and it ended up very thin (like the dough). Rolling the butter-covered dough was also easy to do, and I ended up with what looked like a long green log.
Now came the hard part. I gently sliced the rolled-up dough in half, expecting it to fall apart. It stayed together even as I lifted each side to twist it together. I got the hang of it quickly, and I have to say it looked great.
I transferred the first babka to a lined loaf pan and made the second loaf. Once the loaves were done, I put them into my microwave, covered the pans with a damp tea towel, and let them rise for an hour.
Syrup and Baking
Both loaves of Matcha Black Sesame Babka had noticeably expanded and I breathed a sigh of relief. Now they were ready to bake! I had preheated my oven during the last 15 minutes of the second rise, so it was ready to go. I put both loaves in along with a large sheet pan to catch any drips, and there were a lot of drips. You do not want to skip that sheet pan!
I made the syrup 10-15 minutes before the babkas finished baking. It was ready to go when the loaves came out of the oven. I used a pastry brush to carefully coat every nook and cranny of each loaf with syrup, let it soak in, then repeated that several times. I had more than enough syrup, so don’t be alarmed if you have extra.
All that was left was to wait patiently for my Matcha Black Sesame Babkas to cool. It was hard because my kitchen smelled so good!
Timing
This recipe only has times in the instructions, with no totals at the top. The only times listed were in the instructions. Baking my bread went 5 minutes over the time listed (45-55 minutes), but that was not much at all. Everything else was accurate. Here’s how my time was spent (not including the overnight rise):
- Matcha Babka
- 7 minutes to warm the milk, add yeast, and whisk in flour (step 1-2)
- 16 minutes to finish making dough (steps 3-7)
- Black Sesame Filling
- 6 minutes to toast sesame seeds (done the day before so they would be cooled)
- 6 minutes to make the filling
- Assembly and Second Rise
- 6 minutes to line loaf pans (step 1)
- 24 minutes to punch down dough, roll out, fill, and twist (steps 2-7)
- 1 hour for the second rise
- Bake, Glaze, and Cool
- 1 hour minutes to bake
- 7 minutes to glaze with simple syrup
- 30 minutes to cool in pans
- 3 hours 42 minutes total
