Chocolate Babka | 12 Days of Holiday Baking

My family loves a good babka, especially the one from Liv Bread nearby, where there is always a line. The price has increased markedly, now costing $25 dollars a loaf, when they’re not sold out. The beauty of their babka is its intense chocolate flavor as well as the texture of the crispy crust and the tender crumb. Other notable features are: it’s a round babka and there is no streusel on it.

My daughter also made the point that the local chocolate babka she tasted recently in Tel Aviv was very chocolate forward. With all these ideas spinning in my head, I know I have to make the babka with a real chocolate filling. Well, I also feel the burden to pre-empt criticisms from the food snobs around the dinner table! If that makes me a better baker, so be it.

Dorle’s babka from Baking with Dorie is made from a luxurious brioche dough. The brioche dough is one that I’m very familiar with. In fact, one of the brioche recipes has been the most viewed post on this blog. Over the years, I’ve tried my hands on various types of brioche dough — with natural levain, preferment or with yeast. I have not come across too many brioche doughs I don’t like.

As perfect combination goes, there is no better one than bread and butter. The brioche, made in the longstanding tradition of incorporating butter to the lean dough and exquisitely enriching and transforming them, is bread heaven. It’s my favorite bread to eat, hands down, if I can get away with all the butter.

The greatest appeal of the brioche dough is its richness. It’s an enriched dough which includes eggs and a lot of butter. The amount of butter is in excess of 45% of the flour amount (in weight). Working a huge amount of butter in the dough takes time and patience. Count on beating the dough in the stand mixer for at least 10 minutes or more. Notably, it’s an indispensable step to get the soft crumb — you can tear off the bread shred by shred with your finger.

The next step is to fill the brioche dough with the chocolate filling. Roll the filled dough and braid and shape the loaf. Proof the loaf and then bake.

About the chocolate filling, Dorie’s recipe is a mixture of butter, brown sugar, all-purpose flour, cinnamon and just a little cocoa. The comment I get from the first chocolate babka attempt is that it tastes more like a cinnamon bun than a chocolate babka. I don’t disagree. Therefore, I proceed to make the filling with more than a smattering of chopped chocolate as Dorie suggests.

For the second attempt, I melt 3/4 cup of dark chocolate with one stick of butter, with 1/3 cup of cocoa and 1/2 cup of sugar for the chocolate filling. How do I do?

The kitchen is filled with the aroma of chocolate in the air. There is no doubt we are baking something with chocolate and a good amount of it. Perhaps, it’s too much of a good thing. All I can say is: my version of chocolate babka needs work and attention. It’s not ready for primetime. Nothing wrong with the recipe; it’s the baker!