Full of cinnamon and honey, this Apple Babka is perfect for Rosh Hashanah, Thanksgiving, or any fall celebration. It’s sweet, sticky, and equally delicious for breakfast and dessert!

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is right around the corner. On Rosh Hashanah, it is customary to eat apples dipped in honey for a sweet and fruitful new year.

As I discussed in my first “Babka of the Year” post, The Best Chocolate Babka, babka is Eastern European Jewish in origin.

It only seemed fitting to combine the two and turn September’s Babka of the Month into an apple and honey-themed babka to celebrate Rosh Hashanah!

But even if you don’t celebrate, this is a perfect fall babka.  Apples, simmered in honey and cinnamon, rolled up in delicious rich, thick babka dough, covered in a honey-based simple syrup.  It’s as if apple pie turned into a slice of bread and was somehow appropriate for breakfast (this is a very good thing, in case that’s not clear).

Basically, what I’m saying is: you need this apple babka in your life!

Baking with Honey

To pull on the apples and honey theme of Rosh Hashanah, we’re going to simmer the apples in honey to soften them before rolling them up in the filling.  But wait!  You just pulled out your jar of honey from the back of the cabinet and found that it’s crystallized into a solid.  Is it bad?  Can you still use it?  What the heck happened?

It’s time for my favorite subject…. kitchen chemistry!

Kitchen Chemistry

Honey is a super-saturated sugar solution, containing over 70% sugar and less than 20% water – in other words, the water contains more sugar than it should naturally hold, and is thus unstable.  Exposure to oxygen pushes the honey into a crystallized state, which is normal, and not indicative of spoilage.  Slow exposure to heat will return the honey to a liquid state.

The best way to return your honey to a liquid state? Place the jar of honey in a pot of hot water and let it sit for a few minutes.  Another option: scoop the honey into a bowl and microwave for 30 seconds at 50% power (do not microwave directly in the jar!), then slowly stir.

(Pro tip: if your honey is in a plastic jar – do not — I repeat do not — microwave the honey in the container in an attempt to warm it, even on 10% power.  Just don’t do it.  Scoop the honey out first.  You have been warned.)

Steps Involved in Making Apple Babka

Like all the other babka recipes I’ve shared this year, we’ll have to let the dough rise.  We’ll do this in two steps: a room-temperature rise, and then a refrigerator rise.

First, we’ll make the dough — either with a stand mixer or kneading by hand.  The dough will rise for an hour in a warm, dark place; I use the ‘proof’ setting on my oven for this.

You can also fill a roasting pan with boiling water and set it in the bottom of your oven along with your dough to trap a little extra warm, moist heat for the same effect.

Now that it’s getting chillier outside, you might find you need an hour and a half to two hours on the counter for the dough to rise to 1.75-ish times in size on the counter.

After this first step, we’ll move the dough to the refrigerator.  The yeast will continue to work in the cold and the dough will still rise, but the whole process is slowed down.

For the honey apple babka filling, bring the honey to a very low simmer.  Add in the chopped apples, salt, and cinnamon, and simmer for 10 minutes, until the apples are soft and coated with the honey.

After baking the babka, we’ll also brush the finished loaf with simple syrup.  Because this is a honey apple babka, we’ll make our simple syrup with honey instead of sugar!  It makes the final product a little sticky – which also makes it extra delicious!

Storing Honey Apple Babka

Like all my babka recipes, this apple babka recipe makes two loaves.  The recipe is easy to halve if you just want one (no splitting an egg in half), but I always recommend making two.

You can use a different filling for one if you want, or you can make two of the same and freeze one.  (We enjoyed eating one of these honey apple babkas last month, and have the other in the freezer waiting for Rosh Hashanah!)

Slices of babka can be stored at room temperature for up to 5 days (if they last that long!)

An entire loaf of babka can be frozen for up to 3 months.  Thaw overnight at room temperature before enjoying.

You can also freeze the proofed, unbaked dough and bake it fresh before enjoying it if you want fresh baked apple babka at a later date!  Prepare the babka up through rolling and filling it, twisting it, and placing it into the loaf pan.  Cover tightly with several layers of aluminum foil, then place the entire loaf pan in a freezer bag and freeze for up to 3 months.

When you’re ready to bake, defrost overnight in the refrigerator, bring to room temperature the next day for 2 hours, and then bake!

Recommended Tools to Make Apple Babka

• Instant Yeast: Saf Gold is specifically designed for use in sweetened yeast bread.
• Stand Mixer: My trusty stand mixer comes with a dough hook.
• Rolling Pin: Includes guides to keep the dough at an exact thickness.
• Loaf Pan: Metal loaf pans are the best conductors of heat.
• 3 Quart Sauce Pan: A heavy-bottomed saute pan prevents any of the apple and honey mixture from burning and sticking to the bottom of the pan.
• Pastry Brush: Use a pastry brush to brush the honey simple syrup all over the freshly-baked apple babka.

Tips and Tricks for The Best Honey Apple Babka

1. If you’re new to baking babka, visit this “The Best Chocolate Babka” post for step-by-step photos of how to shape babka dough.
2. Refrigerate the babka dough for the second part of the first rise.  This makes the dough much easier to roll with no need for extra flour.
3. Use apples specifically cultivated for baking for the best texture and flavor — varieties like Granny Smith, Jonagold, Golden Delicious, Winesap, Braeburn, or Honeycrisp.
4. To make cleanup easy after measuring out honey, spray your measuring cup with cooking spray.  The honey will easily slide right out when you pour it.
5. If you don’t want to make the babka all in one day, refrigerate the dough for up to 36 hours during the first rise.
6. Use a thermometer to determine when the babka is done.  When an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf hits 190 °F, your babka is fully cooked!

More Apple Dessert Recipes:

• Caramel Apple Cheesecake
• Jewish Apple Cake
• Apple Bread with Cinnamon Crumble
• Caramel Apple Cake
• Apple Cider Donut Cake

2019 Babka of the Month Series