Duff Goldman's Spinach Artichoke Babka | Food Network

The spinach artichoke babka. All right, so here's how we make it. Put an envelope of active dry yeast in half a cup of milk, and the milk's room temperature. While the yeast gets going, I'm gonna start making the babka dough. Now, a babka is a traditional Eastern European Jewish bread. So I got four and a half cups of flour, and a pinch of salt. I got a third of a cup of sugar. I'm gonna mix this guy up. Four eggs. Teaspoon of vanilla. This recipe will make enough dough for two babkas. Trust me, when you make a babka, make two. Check the yeast out. It's starting to bubble, it's coming to life. So now I'm gonna add my yeast into here. And now, I'm gonna do a pinch of nutmeg. I'm putting in about half a teaspoon. So now I'm gonna do the zest of about half a lemon. I'm gonna slowly start stirring this, and this is gonna become our dough. Okay, so the dough kinda came together, and now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna finish it on the table. I'm just gonna knead it here. So I'm gonna roll the dough into the dry flour. Right now, the dough's really shaggy, right, really dry. But as we knead it, the dough's gonna hydrate. So I got 10 tablespoons of butter. Don't dump it all in here. It's gonna be a humongous mess. Now you'll feel the dough is gonna really start to loosen up a little bit. I'm gonna add some more butter to this. You wanna do it in stages. It's like when you're dating. You know, you like, kinda get used to each other. You know, the dough's gotta get a little bit softer. The butter has to get a little bit warmer. And then eventually, you kinda come together and then make little babkas. When you're done kneading the bread, the table should be clean. Now, we get a bowl. Take a tiny bit of oil and put this guy, put his head down. Now we're gonna cover this. Let it sit for about an hour and a half. And this thing's gonna double in size. It's gonna get much bigger. I wanna make a spinach artichoke dip. So what I'm gonna do is I got some artichokes here. I'm just gonna drain them. I'm gonna take five of these guys. So I got a half a cup of chopped, drained, frozen spinach. You really do wanna use frozen, thawed spinach for this and not fresh, because there's just so much water. This is a half a cup of cream cheese. Mm. We'll get some salt. All right, we need some pepper. So I'm gonna add about two tablespoons, or four, of Parmesan. And then about a quarter cup of mozzarella. And then I'm gonna blend it up. It's gonna get really bright green and really smooth. That's it. That spinach artichoke dip takes about 45 seconds. Okay, now we're gonna make the topping. Panko breadcrumbs. Here's some salt. Two tablespoons of flour. Three tablespoons of Parmesan cheese. Sneak a little pepper in there, too. Okay, and now I'm gonna dump in my butter. And just kinda like we did with the dough, I'm gonna do this by hand. Like I was making a pie dough. Just sort of work those breadcrumbs, work that cheese in there. We have one tablespoon of dried parsley. Now look at this stuff. Look how nice this is. So all these little crumbles here are gonna get really, really crispy on top of that babka. Let's check our babka dough. Oh, I can already see it. Much bigger. And then we'll turn this out gently. Look how beautiful this is. Look at all the little pockets. This is gonna be a nice babka. Okay, this is enough for two. So I am gonna cut this guy right in half. We'll use that later. Okay, now I'm gonna roll this out to 16 by 12. I'm gonna take my spinach artichoke dip. This dip spreads really nice. I mean, it's really holding itself. Yeah, and it's beautiful. Look, it's this bright green. Take some Parmesan, just gonna sprinkle it over top here. I'm gonna put a little matz too. Let's just drizzle a little bit of olive oil in here. Okay, now I'm just gonna roll this guy up like that. Give it another fold like this. Try to keep it really even here. I'm gonna put this in the fridge just for about 15 minutes. That's gonna get all the cheese set so that when we cut this and braid it, everything's not gonna go everywhere. Now that it's been sitting in there, it's a lot more firm, it's gonna be a lot easier to work with. Gonna gently cut all the way through. So as you can see, what you're gonna end up with is layers of dough. Then we're gonna braid it. Take you and cross them right in the middle. And then holding these two, give them a twirl, give them a twirl, and then give them a little pinch. God, that looks good. Just gonna give them a little squeeze and then lift it off of the paper and go right into the pan, just like that. I'm gonna dump my savory cheesy topping all over. All that good topping on there. Can't put it in the oven yet. Gonna cover this guy and let it rise till it gets nice and big, probably like another 45 minutes or so. Look at that. All right, now I'm gonna drizzle this guy with some butter. This is really just gonna help it brown. All right, now this babka is ready to bake. I'm gonna put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, but I'm gonna be keeping an eye on it so I'll make sure it doesn't get too dark or too blonde. This is the spinach artichoke savory babka. Oh, God, that smells good. It's like bready and cheesy. Look at all the layers in here. Come on. Open your eyes. Yes! It's beautiful. So, I have no idea what it looked like in your dream. I mean, that's what it was. Okay. Oh man, does it taste like my dream? Yeah. Oh man, mm, the cheese. Is it great? This is great.