Czech bábovka is a very popular coffee cake, in English known as a bundt cake. This is an old-fashioned Czech recipe for cocoa marble bábovka, easy to make with no fad crazy ingredients.
Czech Babovka
Here in the Czech Republic, a bábovka cake belongs to the most popular desserts made at weekends. Marble bundt cake means mramorová bábovka in Czech.
Because of its simplicity, both young girls and men who want to surprise someone with their baking often prepare the bábovka on weekends.
Other famous Czech desserts are kolache or vánočka houska bread (baked at Christmas).
When I was little, my dad usually made the bábovka. He prepared this lovely swirl cake the same way as in this recipe: vanilla part of bábovka generously marbled with cocoa batter.
We were always curious about the two-color pattern inside the bábovka once we cut it open.
Ingredients
Here are all ingredients to make the best homemade Czech bábovka from scratch:
- Plain Greek yogurt, about 10 % fat
- All-purpose flour, in Czech „hladká mouka“
- Granulated sugar
- Eggs
- Baking powder
- Vegetable oil
- Cocoa powder, for a nice chocolate flavor
- A little milk
- Vanilla essence or extract
In addition, you will need just 2 mixing bowls and a well-dusted bundt cake pan.
✅ You’ll find the exact amount of ingredients below in the recipe card, which you can also print out.
Instructions
Don’t forget that you’ll need a bundt cake pan before we begin. I have had an old ceramic pan for years, and it’s battered, but I really like it.
There isn’t any non-stick coating inside. Because of this, I have to carefully grease and dust the pan with sifted breadcrumbs or with coarse flour (Czech hrubá mouka).
After the bundt cake pan is ready, let’s go and make some bábovka batter!
- Beat eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl for 5 minutes. Use a hand-held mixer set to the highest rotations.
- Add vegetable oil, yogurt, vanilla, flour mixed with baking powder and continue mixing for another 2 minutes.
- Mix a third of the batter with cocoa powder and a little milk.
- Pour half of the white vanilla batter into the bundt cake pan, add cocoa batter, finish with the white batter layer.
- Bake in a pre-heated oven for 50 minutes.
Once the bábovka cools down, you just dust it with powdered sugar.
Unmolding
Getting the bábovka out of the mold (bundt cake pan) can be quite tricky. The problem is magnified with old bundt cake pans without non-stick coating.
Whenever you are using a bund cake pan, never skip this step:
Grease and dust the pan carefully before baking. Coarse flour (in Czech hrubá mouka) or sifted breadcrumbs are used for dusting the pan in the Czech Republic.
Once you finished the bábovka, let it cool down for 10 minutes.
Then, invert the cake onto a rack and cover the pan with a kitchen towel, first soaked in cold water, with the water squeezed out.
Leave the wet towel on a bundt cake pan for 5 minutes, soak and squeeze the towel out again if needed. You can then try to take the bábovka out of the mold.
Because of the quick change of temperature, bábovka can be easily separated from the mold.
Decorating
In the Czech Republic, we generally dust the bábovka surface with powdered sugar. Glazing bábovka is less common. A bundt pan produces beautiful shapes on the surface of bábovka, which means the cake doesn’t need any extra more decoration to amaze.
Pronunciation
I recorded a short audio clip on pronouncing the Czech word bábovka. The first word in the audio is "bábovka", the second is "mramorová bábovka", which means marble bábovka.
Cook’s Tips
- Bábovka cakes have one significant problem: they’re often quite dry and crumbly inside.
- I’ve got a solution: this bábovka is moist and mild because of a secret ingredient: Greek Yogurt!
- Greek Yogurt is a plain yogurt high in fat percentage, containing about 10 % of fat. Feel free to substitute the Greek yogurt with sour cream.
More Czech desserts:
- Žemlovka – apple bread pudding
- Lívance – yeasted pancakes with cinnamon
- Míša řezy – black & white sheet cake
Recipe card
Bábovka – Czech Bundt Cake
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 3 Tbsp (22 g) dark powdered cocoa
- ¾ cup (210 g) plain Greek yogurt (around 10 % fat)
- 1 and ½ cups (200 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (110 g) vegetable oil
- 3 tsp (12 g) baking powder
- vanilla essence (or extract)
- 2 Tbsp (30 ml) milk
- powdered sugar (to dust baked bábovka)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 340 °F (170 °C).
- Grease the bundt cake pan properly and dust with sifted breadcrumbs or coarse flour. Set aside.
- Place eggs and granulated sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix with a hand-held mixer on high speed for 5 minutes until light and airy substance is produced.
- Add oil, yogurt, vanilla, flour mixed with baking powder. Mix on low speed for another 2 minutes. The batter should look creamy and semi-liquid.
- Take ⅓ of batter to a small bowl, stir in cocoa powder and milk using a rubber spatula until combine.
- Spread ⅓ of white batter in the mold.
- Pour the cocoa batter over top of the white batter.
- Finish by spooning the rest of the white batter over the cocoa layer.
- Bake for 50 minutes, or until a skewer or a tooth stick comes out clean (make a test at the end of baking).
- Set the pan on the cooling rack for 10 minutes. Then flip the pan onto the rack, if necessary, use the „cold-soaked towel dish“ trick (see the section on getting the bábovka out of the mold).
- Once it’s almost cold, dust it with powdered sugar.
Notes
DISCLAIMER: Because I come from Central Europe, my recipes are based on metric units such as grams or milliliters. Check out how I convert metric units to the U.S. system:
Conversion chartBábovka is an ideal treat for mornings, Czech like to eat a slice of this bundt cake for breakfast!
Jitka
Lovely cake, it looks delicous!
Petra
Hello Jitka, happy you like this bábovka cake!
margarita
came out Delicious! my first time making it. Everyone loved it!
Petra
Ahoj Margarita, thanks a lot for your comment, and I’m happy you liked the bábovka recipe! 🙂
Sabrina Koleilat
Petro, dekuji moc za recept! Dnes bude pect! Jsem moc rada, ze jsem vás našla! Happy New Year!
Petra
Hello Sabrina, thanks a lot for your kind comment, I hope bábovka will turn great out. Moc zdravím a samozřejmě v novém roce i vám jen to dobré!
Radka
Hello from Canada!
So happy I came across your website. It does not happen very often I'd be craving something but I did want to have babovka the other day! Your Babovka was a hit and will make it again. I appreciate that your recipe does not call for 6 eggs, 4 cups sugar and 2 cups oil if you know what I mean. 🙂 Take care and keep it up, best wishes from the Rockies.
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Radka, what a nice comment, thank you!
I have heard that abroad cakes similar to Czech bábovka are made much sweeter, and the home cooks top them with various glazes or frostings. Czechs are advocates of simple recipes; they usually just dust the surface of the bábovka with icing sugar. I think it looks good that way and tastes just enough to have a sweet life still 🙂
Best wishes from North Bohemia, Petra
Bianca
looks and smells great so far, cant wait to taste.
I was looking for a Bábovka recipe as I fondly remember the ones my Grandma and my Babi would make for me as a child. This is one of the recipes that I never leaned from them so am so grateful for your blog!
Petra Kupská
Oh, thank you so much for such a sweet comment and for remembering your Grandma and Babi! I truly hope you enjoy the bábovka cake, and as we say: dobrou chuť!
kristena
This is a fantastic recipe. I had written you a few months back to tell you how excited I am to find Czech recipes in English. You and your son did a great job!
For me, the recipe is perfect. However, my cooktime was less than recommended. I live at 2500 above sea level and used 340. It was done after 40 minutes for me. Maybe next time I will try 325.
Again, I appreciate these recipes. It makes me so happy..
Petra Kupská
Hi Kristena, thank you for writing in again! Your comment made me happy and of course, I'll let my son know too, I'm sure your words will please him. I am surprised that altitude affects baking time - nature works wonders and we have to adapt 🙂 Anyway, I'm glad you had success with the bábovka cake and that your loved ones enjoyed it! Many greetings from the Czech Republic, Petra
kristena
I'm making it again - I have found that 335 for 45 minutes is the trick. Also, I have one of those thick non-stick bundt pans, so that may impact baking time too.
Everyone loves this cake. My husband takes it to work and they asked for the recipe! Thanks again.
Petra Kupská
Thank you very much for the feedback on the bábovka cake. It's true that a lot of seemingly little things affect the baking method or time. What is important is the result, which was a success, and that is the best praise for any home baker!
Milena Bartik
Wow, I have never made or eaten such a fine(jemnou) babovku. That yogurt makes such a difference,
Petra Kupská
Oh, thank you for such a lovely comment 🙂 You're right, and I can confirm that sour cream (or Greek yogurt) will ensure that the bábovka cake is soft and moist (not dry). I'm glad the bábovka cake was a success with you! ????
Milena Bartik
Just a question, do you think that the yogurt would make a difference in gluten free(bezlepku) babovka? So far any gluten free baking from scratch was not success for me.
Sandy
My husband’s cousin who recently passed away used to make something she called Babovka. She must have been using the wrong name because this is not at all what she made. Her’s was a poppy seed filled very light bread type roll shaped more like a strudel. Does this sound familiar to you? Do you know what the correct would be? I’m going to have to give this “real” babovka a try. It looks delicious.
Petra Kupská
I suppose it could be either a classic poppy seed strudel or a sweet pastry made from yeast dough called "babka." The word babka is similar to the phrase bábovka. Babka pastry is a slice of yeasted dough, coated with a filling of ground poppy seeds (or chocolate, walnuts,...), then rolled and baked. Please try a google image search for the word "babka poppy seed," it might be what you are looking for. Otherwise, the classic Czech bábovka cake is baked in a particular mold (see recipe) and tastes wonderful 🙂 If you decide to give the bábovka a try, I'd love it if you'd post how it turned out. Best wishes, Petra
Andrea
This babovka is delicious! Feels like “home”, thank you so much for the recipe 😉
Petra Kupská
Thank you for your nice words, Andrea! 🙂