Why Can't I Put Vegetables in Babka?

Every so often I toy with the idea of having a small business cooking for people. I worry that the bookkeeping would be a pain, and the pressure of everything having to turn out extra good would take some of the fun out of cooking. And what if I got cat hair in the food? It doesn't usually happen, but I know a kitchen with a cat in it is not up to certification standards. Anyway, I always feel lucky when there's something I want but haven't actively pursued and then an opportunity just comes to me.

Back in January I had friends over for dinner; it was my turn to host our rotating monthly dinner group. I don't remember what the meal was, because the star of the evening was the chocolate babka I made for dessert. It was enormous, swirly, and chocolatey. One of the guests is a good friend who doesn't cook at all but is a big fan of my cooking. I like cooking for her, since the praise is a nice reward, and she's always willing to help with dishes. A few weeks after the dinner, she asked if she could pay me to bake a babka for her mother's birthday.

Raw babkas rising on the ledge above my sink

 She said she would like it a little less sweet, which I don't understand. Why would anything be better with less chocolate?! But I've heard some people think "too sweet" is a thing, so ok. I really thought she also suggested maybe it would be good with vegetables, but there are some signs I may have remembered that wrong. Sign one: I told another friend I was going to make a babka with vegetables and she said, "Wait, these are two different things you're making, right? Babka and something with vegetables?" I said no, babka with vegetables. She said no. We were at a small restaurant at the time, and she told the chef, "Her friend wants her to make babka with vegetables," and the chef started laughing. Sign two: when I told my friend I'd bought the ingredients to make babka with vegetables, she said "No, I think I just said I wanted it less sweet. You can still put chocolate in it." I guess my faulty memory was being creative.

I'd already bought the vegetables and was excited to invent something new, so I asked if she wanted a chocolate babka and a savory babka, and she said sure. So I got to spend half the day kneading and rolling dough. Which was actually a little stressful since I wanted to also revise a work-related article I'm writing, but I got it done. And the babka came out great. The chocolate one is extra beautiful, though I made it a little bit too much less sweet.

Doesn't it look amazing? One friend said it looks like a giant cinnamon raisin bagel. The vegetable one is slightly less beautiful, but despite the laughter, it actually tastes better than the chocolate!

Vegetable Babka

Dough: 

3/4 cup Soy Milk (or any kind of milk)
5 tbsp Earth Balance (or butter or margarine)
1 package active dry yeast
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
2 leggs
3/4 tsp Salt
4 cup Flour, white
  

Filling:

1 1/2 onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, whole
olive oil
2 cups broccoli, chopped very small
3 cups spinach, chopped
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast

Heat the milk and earth balance in a small saucepan. Turn off just as milk almost comes to a boil. If the butter is not fully melted, don't worry, it will continue melting. Let sit for 10 minutes to cool.
Mix the yeast and sugar with 1/4 cup lukewarm water and let sit. It should get puffy after 5 minutes - if not, your yeast is dead. Add the warm milk to the yeast, along with the eggs and salt, and mix with a wooden spoon. Add in the flour one cup at a time, stirring well. When it starts to come together into a ball, turn it into a floured surface (e.g. a very clean countertop) and knead it while mixing in more flour until it is no longer sticky. Pour just a bit of oil into the bowl and put the ball of dough back in. Cover with a cloth and let sit for 2 hours.
Pour about a tsp olive oil into a frying pan and heat on very low heat. Put in the onions and whole cloves and stir occasionally until they are golden all over. Yum! This takes about half an hour. Transfer the onions to a bowl. Put a little more oil in the pan and add the broccoli. Add a half cup water and cover with a lid so it will steam. When the water is evaporated, add soy sauce, sesame oil, and the spinach. Stir and cover again. When spinach is wilted, sprinkle nutritional yeast over it and stir again.
Re-clean your countertop, sprinkle more flour, and put the dough back on it. Put half the dough aside. using a rolling pin, roll out into a large rectangle. I think mine was about 6" x 18". Spread half the onions and half the green vegetables evenly across it. The garlic will be soft enough to break apart with your fingers so you can distribute it more. Roll the dough up from the long edge into a long tube. Put the two ends of the tube together to make a circle. (If you can hold the two ends and twist before bringing them together, this will look a bit prettier. See the chocolate babka above, where I did that.) Put into a greased pie pan. Repeat with the other half of the dough and filling. Let rise again for an hour.
If you'd like, you can glaze with sesame or olive oil before baking.
Preheat oven to 375 and bake for 50 minutes.