BABKA

Chocolate Babka, combines a light and tender homemade dough, with a rich and scrumptious filling of chocolate. Finished off with a brushing of simple syrup, you would want to eat it for a sensorial experience you’ll never forget!

If you are a chocolate lover like me, you can understand. All your senses are engaged: visually it is stunning, then you break the slice with your hands to bring it to your mouth and it smells amazing of butter and chocolate. Your taste buds are singing “Hallelujah” and your fingers are stained with chocolate, as well as your mouth. No judging here, for licking your fingers. This babka is light, tender, and buttery, and the filling is rich, scrumptious, and oh so good, and it melted in every crevice of the braid. The syrup makes it moist and deliciously just-right sweet.

Babka is a wonderful pastry that you can make with many different fillings, from the classic chocolate to cinnamon, or even biscoff.

Although a delicious dough, it isn’t an incredibly moist one, to begin with, and that is one of the reasons you have to generously glaze it with a sugar syrup once out of the oven. Just take care not to ‘over bake’ so it won’t dry out.

A STEP BY STEP VIDEO TUTORIAL IS ON MY INSTAGRAM HIGHLIGHTS.

INGREDIENTS:

530g plain flour (plus extra for rolling out the dough)

100g caster or granulated sugar

1 tbsp active dry yeast

3 lg eggs

60ml whole milk (WARM, BETWEEN 110* TO 120*) This is very crucial

60ml water

¾ tsp salt

150g butter, room temp

300g Nutella

100-200g choc chips (depending on how chocolatey you want it!)

For sugar syrup...

100g sugar

80ml water

*This is for both the loaves

Instructions

1. In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, whisk the flour with the sugar. Combine the warm milk, water with the yeast and let stand until it activates and is foamy, about 5 minutes. Now add the activated yeast and the eggs to the dry ingredients and start mixing . Mix at low speed for 2 minutes. Now add the salt and butter , while the mixer is running.Mix at medium speed until all of the ingredients are incorporated. The dough will be now sloppy, which is totally fine. Now turn the mixer up to medium/ high speed for about 10—12 minutes. At the end if this, the dough will be shiny and elasticy. Now topple the dough on to a plastic wrap. Try to form a rectangle with your hands and loosely cover it. Let the dough stand in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

2. Take the dough out the next day and roll it into a big rectangle. Make sure you work space is coated well with flour so the dough doest stick. The width of the dough once rolled, should be 12” in width and the length about 24”. Don't t worry if its not perfectly shaped, you will trim out the edges later.

3. Now generously spread the Nutella over the dough, making sure you go right up to the edges.

4. To boost the chocolate goodness, sprinkle the chocolate chips over the Nutella .

5.Trim the edges of and then gently start rolling the dough to form a long tube like shape. Make sure you press tightly and as you roll, try not to do just one end and not the other or you’ll end up with a very uneven roll.

6. You can trim the ends of the roll and use that to bake another cinnamon type of roll, as I did in the tutorial.

7. Now cut the babka roll from the center, and you should have 2 even size rolls. As I explained in my video, this recipe makes 2 babka loaves.

8.Take one roll off the babka and with a sharp knife, cut along the length from the centre. It will reveal the Nutella side, and you want this visible.

9. Now you will shape the bread. With the Nutella side up, cross one layer over the other,making a cross. Now twist into a braid just always keeping the Nutella side on top.

10. Gently lift the babka and Place it in your loaf tin, lined with a grease proof paper. Its not yet ready to bake as it need to get its second proof (rest and rise a final time). Leave it ‎ ‎for 1 1/2 hour at room temperature, covered with a tea towel.

11. Now bake in a preheated oven at 170C or 190C if you don't have a fan oven for 30-35 minutes.

12. While the babka is baking in the oven, you can make your sugar syrup. Which will give a shiny glaze as well as seep through the bread and keep it moist.

13. Put the water and sugar ‎in a pan over medium heat and stir till the sugar dissolves.

14. Once the babka is baked and out of the oven, gently drizzle the sugar syrup over the top. Now this sugar syrup is for 2 babkas so use wisely 😉.

15. WAIT TILL ITS FULLY COOLED DOWN BEFORE CUTTING THROUGH. I KNOW IT WILL BE VERY TEMPTING BUT TRUST ME, ITS WORHT THE WAIT.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR FREEZING DOUGH This recipe is for 2 loaves (halving the recipe doesn't seem to get great results). So if you don't want to bake two at once, you can follow the recipe up until the shaping part (the spreading, the cutting and the twisting). Pop both twisted loaves in to separate loaf tins. The one you want to freeze, simply wrap the entire tin well with cling film and put it in the freezer. Then, when you want to bake it, take it out and cover it loosely with a tea towel or something similar, and leave it for several hours at room temperature. It needs to defrost, then prove so this can take a while. Once the dough looks proven (it's almost double it's original size), you can bake it as instructed.