Chocolate Babka

I thought that chocolate babka was very hard to make, but it actually wasnt too difficult! The preparation was was short, the long wait of letting the dough rise was the hardest part, but this was well worth the wait! It turned out good and delicious. 😊

The texture is perfect, with a chocolate filling, mmmm yummy! My daughter calls it chocolate bread, its too cute! They taste even better when paired with some hot coffee! So lets get started?

Ingredients:

Dough

• 3/4 cup warm milk
• 3 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter/softened and cut into pieces

Filling

• 1/4 cup butter
• 3/4 cup dark or semi-chocolate chips or chopped
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 egg beaten

Directions:

For the dough:

1. Make the milk warm, pour the milk in a mixing bowl and sprinkle a pinch of sugar with the active yeast in, mix it and wait for it to get foamy (normally it will take like 10-15 minutes).
2. When the yeast is ready, add half of the flour, start mixing it using the stand mixer and add the salt, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract.
3. Add the butter slowly as you mix, until you have used all of it.
4. Slowly add more flour as you mix until you have used the remaining flour.
5. Scrape down the dough in the side of the mixing bowl, and place the dough on to spread flour shape it to a big bowl.
6. Place the dough ball into a greased bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel. Place it in the warm place. Wait for 2 hours, the dough should doubled the size.

For the filling:

1. In a small sauce pan, melt the butter in medium heat.
2. Add and Melt the chocolate chips or chopped chocolate bar.
3. Remove the pan from the heat, add the brown sugar and the unsweetened cocoa powder.

Making the babka

1. After 2 hours, divide the dough into 8 pieces, roll the piece long ways and flatten it using a roller. Spread the filling all over the dough see pictures below.

2. Roll the dough with the filling in it, slice in the middle long ways but not all the way. See picture below.

3. Braid or twist the dough and shape it, like in the pictures.

4. Place them in the baking pan with a baking sheet, leave atleast 3 inches space. And cover them with a kitchen towel,let them rise for 1 hour.

5. Pre-heat the oven at 350 Fahrenheit, when you are ready to bake.
6. Bake it for 35-40 minutes.

Hope you guys enjoy this recipe, 😋 thank you so much for reading. I appreciate any feedback and don’t forget to like my page and channel! 😊