Banana Babka
Enriched bread made with ripe bananas to yield a soft, flavorful bread. This yeasted banana bread is swirled with a brown sugar cinnamon filling.
During the height of grocery shortages and banana baking frenzy of 2020, my husband suggested I try making a banana babka. I thought about his idea, considered slicing bananas, tossing them with cinnamon sugar for a filling in a plain babka, but I don’t personally love the taste of roasted bananas. It wasn’t until I saw this banana nutella roll recipe, which was based on this yeasted banana bread recipe, that I began playing with the idea of using the banana IN the dough. I finally gave it a go and… just, wow.
One thing: this is going to be a sticky dough that is not very easy to work with. I’m sorry! It will work out though, you’ll see the dough rise nicely twice, and it will be difficult to roll out and spread the filling over. Feel free to liberally use flour when you do. The result is absolutely worth it: it’s SO soft and tender!
And that filling? Oh my. It’s cinnamon roll filling and combined with the banana it tastes like banana french toast – it’s incredible.
Why babka?
The dough itself is not like a traditional chocolate babka or a challah due to the added banana and lack of eggs. I call it a babka because of how it is shaped; according to My Jewish Learning, “In its most traditional form, babka is made by twisting a yeast-based dough swathed in different fillings around itself into a tortuous loaf that is baked at medium heat for around an hour.” There is truly nothing like that amazing twist that is signature to babka, a bread that originated in Eastern European Jewish communities: “in the early 1800s, when housewives would spread extra challah dough with jam or cinnamon, roll it up, and bake it alongside the bread,” (Food52). With the cinnamon filling, I couldn’t think to call it anything else without honoring the origins of the idea.
Recipe Ingredients
Bananas: Ripe & brown! The kind of bananas you’d use for banana bread.
Bread flour: A flour that’s got a higher protein content, so at least 11% will yield a chewier bread. If you can’t find it use all purpose but get one with a higher protein content.
Sugar: granulated sugar. I don’t like using brown sugar in my doughs because it doesn’t always dissolve well.
Yeast: fast acting or instant yeast. If you use active dry add ¼ teaspoon more. I dissolve both types of yeast in milk before adding to the dough.
Canola oil: You can also use any neutral tasting oil like grapeseed or vegetable.
Milk: whole milk or 2% at least. The milk makes the bread very tender.
Salt & vanilla: I always add both to my doughs to give it flavor. Don’t skip the salt.
Butter: This is for the filling and you can either brown it or melt it (see below in FAQ).
Brown sugar: Light or dark is fine. You could use granulated as well but you’ll miss that caramel-like flavor.
Turbinado sugar: Raw sugar, I love this sugar here. It gives a really nice crunchy top to the bread which contrasts so well with the gooey filling and soft bread. If you can’t find it you can just skip it.
Eggwash: If you don’t want to crack an egg just for the egg wash you can brush on heavy cream or milk. This will help the turbinado sugar adhere to the dough and give it a nice shiny top.
How to make Banana Babka
Set the warm milk and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer, stir gently then leave it for a bit to bloom (it should dissolve and look foamy)
Mash the bananas with a fork
Add all the dough ingredients into the bowl
Knead on low, it will start out sticky and messy
Gradually it will start to clear the bowl and gather in a ball around the dough hook
Transfer to an oiled bowl and leave to rise for a few hours, or overnight in the fridge
Flour the countertop and divide the dough into two halves
Roll each dough out into a long rectangle
Then spread the filling (softened butter, cinnamon, sugar and a pinch of salt) over the dough
Roll it up into a short log then slice the log in half lengthwise (so you have two long strips), twist the two strips around each other then place in an oiled loaf pan
Cover with a tea towel and let rise until puffy
Optional: brush with an egg wash and sprinkle with sugar on top.
Bake until a thermometer registers 190 F in the center (the breads will be nicely browned)
FAQ
Can I brown the butter for the filling? Also how do I brown butter?
Yes. You’ll want to brown a bit more than listed because a lot of moisture evaporates. So for the ⅔ cup listed you’ll want to brown around 1 cup, and measure after its browned. To brown: In a saucepan, melt the butter on low. Cook it as it sputters and spits and once it goes a bit silent and you see bits of brown, transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Let it cool a bit before you add the sugar.
Can I halve the recipe to make just one loaf?
Yes. It won’t change much – just half of everything below. For the yeast go with a slightly heaped teaspoon.
Can I make this babka recipe into cinnamon rolls?
Yes, once the dough is in a log, slice them and place in a prepared 13×9” cake pan. Bake time will be 350 F for about 25 minutes – go by eye.
Can I make this all the night before and bake the next day?
I think you could but the rolls should come to room temperature before you bake them. And make sure they are ready, even at room temperature: do the press check. Does the dough hold an indentation? Then it’s okay to go into the oven. If not, give it more time to rise.
Banana Babka Recipe
Banana Babka
Ingredients
Yeasted Banana Bread
- 240g or 1 cup milk
- 7g or 1 packet instant yeast
- 50g or ¼ cup sugar fine granulated or brown
- 50g or ¼ cup canola oil
- 150 g sliced bananas ripe about 1 ½ medium sized bananas or two small
- 520g or 4 cups bread flour
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Cinnamon Brown Sugar Filling
- 200g or 1 cup dark brown sugar 200g
- 87g or 6 tablespoons butter, softened
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Topping
- 1 egg whisked
- Turbinado sugar
Method
The night before, make the dough:
- Heat the milk so it’s lukewarm and add the yeast to it, stir and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, add the rest of the dough ingredients and the milk & yeast mixture. Turn the mixer on low for a couple of minutes, then to medium and knead for a full ten minutes. The dough will be very sticky at first but it will start to come together a bit more toward the end of the ten minutes. Transfer the dough to a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set in the fridge overnight.
The next morning:
- Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature until it doubles in size, about 30-50 minutes depending on the temperature of your kitchen. It should still be a bit cold when you start working with it.
- Make the filling by first browning or melting the butter, then stirring the sugar, cinnamon, salt and vanilla. If you’ve browned the butter and the mixture is quite hot, set it in the freezer to cool for 5-10 minutes.
- Prepare two loaf pans by greasing and lining them with a parchment sling. Use metal clips to hold the parchment in place if you have them.
- Divide the dough into two equal halves. Set one aside, sprinkle some flour over it so it doesn’t dry out.
- Roll out the first half to about 16×10 inches. Spread half of the filing over the dough, leaving a 1 inch border on one of the shorter sides. Roll up the dough from the other short side into a log then, using a sharp knife, slice it in half lengthwise. Twist the two halves around each other and place in prepared pan. Repeat with second half. Set the pans in a warm area and let rise until puffy. Preheat the oven to 350 F. The loaves are ready for the oven when the dough is pressed and the indentation doesn’t spring back very quickly (about an hour). Brush with eggwash and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
- Bake the loaves for about 40 minutes, covering with foil if they are browning too quickly. To know if your bread is fully baked in the center use an oven thermometer, it should register 190 F.
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Yum! Someone made this at work and I asked for the recipe. Made with frozen overripe banana I had- soo good I’ve already eaten a quarter of it on my own and it’s only been out of the oven for a couple hours. Planning to freeze the other loaf. Might add an extra banana next time as I can’t really taste it or even slice up some to put in the middle but this reminds me of monkey bread. So soft and tasty.
This is the third time I’ve made this. One was gluten free with Caputo Fioreglut. All are excellent. Today I added 2 Tbsp of flour to the butter sugar filling to make more of a paste. It came out excellent and cut down on the amount of butter that runs out when baking. I just mash 2 very ripe bananas and mix into the dough. Excellent!
Hi Sam – This is a phenomenal recipe. I didn’t change a thing. I bake a lot and this is easily the best thing I’ve baked in a very long time. Thank you so much for this delightful recipe!
Excellent recipe. Made it gluten free with Caputo Fioreglut GF flour. Worked perfectly.
SO SO good!!! not overwhelmingly banana-y which i personally preferred. tender, moist, hard to not eat all in one sitting. sam killed this as usual 🙂
I made this today. The only thing I changed was that I added banana slices on top of the cinnamon roll filling. Absolutely delicious! I am betting that this will make amazing french toast!
I just baked these today. I have made a lot of babkas and this is the best I’ve ever made. It is time consuming and messy but oh boy it is worth it!
Ahh, lol, true it is messy and sticky but so glad you agree it’s worth it!
I’m vegan so I used cashew milk and country crock vegan butter and left off the topping. They turned out wonderfully! I was a little worried the banana wouldn’t shine through but it was just perfect, not overpowering but definitely noticeable and balanced. I made half into cinnamon rolls and half into babka. The cinnamon rolls were done at 20 minutes. Made a little cinnamon glaze for those too 😉
Just made this! I added a little lemon zest and cardamom to the dough for extra flavor. This came out super tasty and good! I would definitely make this again, maybe next time I’d add some sliced almonds on top for more crunch! I don’t have a stand mixer so I just kneaded the dough by hand, which is possible but very sticky! What a lovely recipe, thank you for sharing!
NVM! I see that it says 190F not C!!
Can’t wait to see how this comes out! Just a quick question about the instructions. The oven should be set to 350F (175C) but at the end it says the internal temp of the loaf should be 190C. Should I bake it at a higher temperature, or is it done when it reaches 350F/175C?
currently going through all the soft-yeast dough recipes cause i finally got my hands on a standing kitchen machine and que dire, what can i say,, it’s the usual Sam magic (*.*)! made it with spelt flour as this was the highest protein amount i could find, also had some crème fraiche to use up so i swapped it in for 100gr milk. made 1 with the cinnamon filling and the other with the chocolate filling from the milk chocolate babka and we gobbled up half of each loaf while it was still warm from the oven. wonderful!
This is the best babka I’ve ever made. Would it be possible to remove/replace the bananas so that it is a neutral tasting dough? Thank you!
So happy you liked it! For plain, i’d just make my milk bread babka, recipe is here: https://buttermilkbysam.com/milk-bread-chocolate-babka/
This babka is delicious! I wish the banana flavor was stronger… maybe next time I’ll add more and see how it goes. I browned the butter for the cinnamon mixture and am happy with the results. The babka is so soft and has a nuttiness from the browned butter and the caramelization of the sugar. Yum!
can i use all purpose flour?
yes!
Move over banana bread, this is now my go-to whenever we have overripe bananas. It is so so good and although it looks like it should be a finicky bake with the folding, it’s super easy and comes together fast and is so delicious. I’m not a banana person, though the rest of my family is, but this we can agree on. These don’t stay in our house long.
Can the first fridge rise be almost 24 hrs or is that too long? I want to make the dough tonight and not bake until tomorrow night. Would that work?
Hmm it could work – I worry it will exhaust the yeast too early so keep an eye on it! Alternatively, you could do the rise in the afternoon and just do a room temp rise for 2 hours.
Made this into 1 loaf and 9 cinnamon rolls. It was amazing and we couldn’t help but eat it right out of the oven. I ended up kneading it by hand because my stand mixer has been making weird noises, so it is totally possible to do it that way, but it does take about 20 minutes in case anyone was wondering. The dough is really sticky before chilling, but is really soft and easy to work with the next morning! Overall, a really amazing and creative recipe!
This recipe is absolutely heavenly, maybe my favorite babka I’ve made. Sam warned us, but I actually found the dough to be a joy to work with. I used EXTREMELY overripe bananas that had been frozen and defrosted. The flavours were beautifully balanced and comforting, and the bread stayed fresh longer than most babkas I’ve made, almost like a tangzhong. Also, my loaves were some of the most incredibly photogenic bakes I’ve done.
BTW, you will see many shaping techniques out there for babkaa, not standardized at all. Because this makes two loaves, I decided to try two different babka shaping techniques as an experiment. I can confirm that Sam’s method is by far the easiest to execute and the prettiest once baked. Thank you Sam!
Hi Sam! I made this recipe this morning and it was by far one of the best breads I have had! I swapped out the filling for melted chocolate and crushed oreos as I was out of brown sugar. Thank you again for a another perfect recipe!
Have made these multiple times and they’re always crowd pleasers. The recipe is super easy to follow and the loaves come out exactly as described. Thanks for sharing!
I made these this morning and yummy! Followed the recipe to the letter and the dough was wonderfully soft but not overly sticky which could have just been a result of not using a super super ripe banana. Halved the recipe so I had to use the paddle till the dough came together enough for the dough hook. I shaped them into twisted knots and put some chocolate glaze on ‘em. So fancy and a nice change of pace from cinnamon rolls.
This recipe is so unique and creative! Just made the dough and I’m going to fill it with a chocolate filling.
I made this today. I think there is too much butter in the filling recipe. 2/3 c. Of melted butter mixed with 1 c. Of dark brown sugar was very soupy and the butter didn’t all blend with the sugar. I added about 1/4 c. More sugar to the mixture and that helped, but as I rolled up the logs, there was extra butter leaking out. I’m hoping when I bake it I don’t have a butter mess in my oven from the butter melting out and spilling over. I had that happen with a very early Bake From Scratch babka recipe, where my intuition told me it was too much butter in the filling but I proceeded anyway with the recipe. Can’t wait to try the banana flavored bread.
Melissa, I think you are right – it should’ve been 1/2 cup butter not 2/3. I think I wrote 2/3 because that’s how much I’d brown to get about 1/2 cup browned butter. Thanks for the note – edited!
I made knotted buns out of the dough and they turned out amazing! Love the recipe! More eggless recipes please!
Hi! Just confirming what you meant by “loaf pans” (8×4? 9×5?)? Thanks!
Yup, either will work!
I am a bit confused about the instructions regarding overnight. If I make the dough and let it rise and then proceed through all the steps until it is ready to rise again, at that point can I put it into the ‘frig overnight and then do the bake in the morning?I am guessing I should not overnight the dough twice? The recipe looks to be super yummy and I really want to try it but would prefer making it one day and baking it off the next. Any advice would be very appreciated.
BTW…your roasted strawberry cheesecake square are probably the best cheesecake item I have ever tasted.
Hi Nancy. Woohoo, so glad you liked the cheesecake! For the babka, the recipe is not written to be in the fridge overnight twice – just for the first rise, as listed. I do say in the FAQ that you could do this all in one day then have just the second rise overnight. In this case you’ll do a room temperature first rise and then do the second overnight. Warning though: the dough will be difficult to shape if it isn’t cold (it’s very sticky!). But it can be done. And overall I’d say go by what you see and feel from the dough rather than specific timings; the first rise is ready when it doubles, it’s ready to go into the oven when you press it and the dough doesn’t spring back. Hope that helps!
Once again, you lead a very good idea we’ve all had but were too lazy to perfect to its logical, and best, conclusion. I have come to rely on this blog so much for its commitment to novel but ultimately very sensible ideas and variations executed to pleasurable perfection. I imagine there’re a lot of experiments abandoned in favor of sharing with us the best, so for that I thank you. Great stuff.