Chocolate babka
Babka comes from the Ashkenazi Jewish kitchens of Central and Eastern Europe, and the chocolate twist is its modern form. The whole drama comes from a single move: the rolled log is cut lengthways and twisted with the cut sides facing up. The exposed layers of chocolate make a pattern no ordinary rolling produces. Two things are critical: the dough must be cold to be cut at all, and the syrup goes onto the hot loaf, because only then does it soak in.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Dough 25 min
- Chilling 240 min
- Filling 15 min
- Twisting 25 min
- Proving 90 min
- Baking 40 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneKnead the dough and work in the butter
Dissolve the yeast in the milk. Combine the flour, milk with the yeast, eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla and knead 8 minutes, then add the butter a piece at a time, kneading a further 10. The dough should be smooth and pull from the bowl while still slightly tacky.
Ingredients: 500 g bread flour · 130 ml milk · 20 g fresh yeast · 2 pcs eggs · 70 g sugar · 1 tsp salt · 120 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Chill at least four hours
Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. This is not optional: warm dough with this much butter is impossible to cut and twist — it stretches and the filling runs out.
Ingredients: 500 g bread flour · 130 ml milk · 20 g fresh yeast · 2 pcs eggs · 70 g sugar · 1 tsp salt · 120 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Make a thick chocolate filling
Melt the chocolate with the butter, stir in the cocoa, icing sugar and salt and cool to a thick paste. A runny filling escapes as you roll; too firm and it tears the dough. It should spread like butter that has stood a moment in a warm room.
Ingredients: 200 g dark chocolate · 100 g butter · 30 g cocoa · 80 g icing sugar · 1 pinch salt
Roll thin and spread the filling
Divide the dough into two equal pieces — this quantity makes two loaves. Roll each into a 40 by 30 cm rectangle, about 4 mm thick, and spread half the filling over it right to the edges. Thin dough means more turns, and more turns means a clearer pattern in the slice.
Ingredients: 500 g bread flour · 130 ml milk · 20 g fresh yeast · 2 pcs eggs · 70 g sugar · 1 tsp salt · 120 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Right to the edges — or the ends of the log come out empty.Roll tightly and chill a quarter of an hour
Roll up each rectangle tightly from the long side, pressing at each turn, and put the logs in the freezer for 15 minutes. A cold log cuts cleanly; a warm one smears filling along the knife and the pattern disappears.
Ingredients: 500 g bread flour · 130 ml milk · 20 g fresh yeast · 2 pcs eggs · 70 g sugar · 1 tsp salt · 120 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Cut lengthways and twist cut sides up
Cut each log lengthways down its whole length and twist the two halves together with the cut faces upwards, crossing them alternately. This single step creates the characteristic pattern — plain rolling never will.
Ingredients: 500 g bread flour · 130 ml milk · 20 g fresh yeast · 2 pcs eggs · 70 g sugar · 1 tsp salt · 120 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Cut faces up — the layers must stay visible.Into the tins and prove 90 minutes
Lift the twists into two lined loaf tins (about 25 by 11 cm), cover and leave to prove for 90 minutes, until visibly risen. Dough coming out of the fridge starts cold, so it rises more slowly than ordinary enriched dough — do not cut this short.
Ingredients: 500 g bread flour · 130 ml milk · 20 g fresh yeast · 2 pcs eggs · 70 g sugar · 1 tsp salt · 120 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract
The twist in the tin, cut faces still showing on top.Bake and soak with hot syrup
Bake in a preheated oven for 40 minutes at 175°C, until a skewer pushed into the middle comes out free of raw dough (streaks of chocolate are fine); if the top darkens too quickly, cover it with foil. Towards the end of baking, bring the sugar and water to the boil until the sugar dissolves, and pour the syrup over the loaves the moment they come out, while hot. Hot dough absorbs the syrup entirely; cooled, it would leave a sticky pool on top.
Ingredients: 100 g sugar · 80 ml water
Before you start
The syrup is not just gloss
Soaking with syrup keeps the babka moist for two to three days, whereas without it the loaf dries out much sooner. Do not skip the step, even if the loaf already seems sweet enough.
The cinnamon and walnut version
The other classic filling is butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped walnuts. The twisting technique is identical and the filling simpler — a good place to start the first time.
Freezing works
The shaped, unproved twist freezes in the tin. Bake after thawing and proving overnight in the fridge, then 2 hours at room temperature — the result is indistinguishable from fresh.
