Delicious sourdough bobalki are made with stiff sourdough starter butter, and milk. These sourdough dough balls are sweetened by honey and poppy seeds
What is Bobalki?
Bobalki (also spelled bobaľky or bobáľky) is a traditional Slovakian dish often enjoyed on Christmas Eve. It is a small bread roll or dumpling served sweet or savory, depending on regional and family preferences.
Bobalki is often part of the Christmas Eve meal in Slovakia, which is traditionally meatless and focuses on simple, symbolic foods. In Slovak tradition, the dish represents abundance and unity within the family.
There is another delicious Vanocka, a traditional braided Christmas bread from the Czech Republic and Slovakia with loads of raisins and almonds. Great as toast.
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Ingredients to make Sourdough Bobalki
Here is the ingredients to make sourdough bobalki
- Bread flour: Artisan bread flour
- Sugar: Add sweetness to the bread rolls
- Stiff starter: sourdough stiff starter is used it.
- Butter: Melted butter
- Milk: 2% Milk
- Salt: Controls the fermentation and adds flavor.
- Honey: Used raw honey you can use your favorite honey.
- Poppy seeds: If you want you can crush them. I didn’t do that part.
- Water: To sprinkle the bread balls
See the recipe card for quantities.
Instructions
In a bowl, add a stiff starter, melted butter, milk, sugar, and salt, and mix well.
To this add bread flour and combine well to form a soft and supple dough.
Set aside the dough for 4 hours.
- Sourdough starter, melted butter, milk, salt, and sugar and mix well. Then add bread flour and combine again.
- Form a soft supple dough and set aside for 4 hours at 78F. Then referigerate the dough.
- Next morning divide the dough into 30g pieces and shape twice.
- After pre-shaping for 30 minutes, shape the dough and set aside for 1-2 hours at 76F.
Refrigerate overnight.
Next morning shape the dough into small ball about 30g and set aside for 2 hours .
Then bake the sourdough bobalki .
In a small bowl add honey and poppy seeds mix well and set aside.
Then sprinkle water on the top of baked sourdough bobalki and then mix in the honey poppy seed mix.
Enjoy
Variations
Giving the visitor ideas on how they can change this recipe to better You can make both sweet and savory versions.
Sweet Version: Served with honey, poppy seeds, or a combination of nuts and sugar.
Savory Version: Tossed with sauerkraut and sometimes seasoned with onion or caraway seeds.
For a quick and easy version of the poppy seed topping, if you want you can use canned poppy seed filling and add honey to your taste.
Also, for easier version use frozen bread dough and ready-made poppy seed filling makes it extremely easy to add bobalki to your Christmas eve and holiday menus.
Traditionally, bobalki bread dunked in hot water and drained water before adding honey and poppy seeds, I skipped that step only sprinkled hot water on the top.
You can also use ground poppy seeds powdered sugar ,butter and a bit milk. Bring it to boil and pour over the bread!
Storage
You can keep the honey poppy seed coated sourdough bobalki in a plastic wrap for 2-3 days in refrigerator. While reheating you can pour hot milk into it or just warm up in microwave and serve.
Top Tip
Make sure to use stiff sourdough starter for better result as this sweet but not too sweet bread.
This recipe does not contain any eggs.
When you are adding water to the bread before adding honey-poppy seed filling make sure not to soak too much. That can result in mushy bread.
FAQ
Can I make sourdough bobalaki without stiff starter?
Yes, you can make it need to use a very strong starter or leaven to make this bread as it contains sugar.
I have made this sourdough bobalki as part of BreadBaker’s event.
Looking for other Christmas Bread recipes like this? Try these:
Pairing
These are my favorite Sourdough recipes
Sourdough Bobalki
Delicious sourdough bobalki are made with stiff sourdough starter butter, and milk. These sourdough dough balls are sweetened by honey and poppy seeds .
Servings: 21 pieces
Calories: 114kcal
Ingredients
- 300 g 2 ½ cups Artisan bread flour
- 140 g ⅔ cup sourdough starter stiff starter
- 52 g 4 tablespoon melted butter
- 40 g ¼ cup sugar
- 180 g ¾ cup cold milk
- For poppy seed glaze
- 100 g honey
- 50 g poppy seeds
- 42 g water for sprinkling the baked dough balls.
Instructions
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In a kitchen aid mixer bowl add stiff sourdough starter, melted butter, sugar, milk, salt and combine well.
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Then add flour and mix everything well to form a soft supple dough.
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Then transfer to greased bowl and set aside the dough for about 4 hours at 78°F then refrigerate overnight.
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Next morning divide the dough into 21 equal pieces of about 30g and pre shape the dough into a ball and set aside for 30 minutes.
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Then after 30 minutes shape once again and set aside for 1-2 hours at 76°F until it becomes puffy and rises a bit.
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Bake at 375°F for 18 minutes. Once the bread is done.
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Then sprinkle with hot water and set aside. Traditionally you need to soak the bread with water.
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In the meantime, in a small bowl add honey and poppy seeds and mix well.
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Add these honey-poppy seeds glaze into the water sprinkled sourdough bobalki and mix everything so that it gets coated well.
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Serve warm.
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Enjoy.
Nutrition
Calories: 114kcal | Carbohydrates: 19g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 3g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Trans Fat: 0.1g | Cholesterol: 6mg | Sodium: 21mg | Potassium: 47mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 71IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 48mg | Iron: 0.4mg
This is Swathi ( Dr. Ambujom Saraswathy Ph.D) from Zesty South Indian Kitchen who loves to explore cuisines from all over the world. Whenever possible I try to to give an Indian touch to several of the world cuisine, and has weakness for freshly baked bread. All the recipes you see here are created by me and approved after taste-test by my family.