Homemade Chocolate Babka is beautiful and so delicious! It combines some of my favorites – bread, chocolate and cinnamon. I had never made it, but my son had found the recipe and wanted to try it – so glad he did. It was a fun project!
The recipe we used first was from Tori Avey’s blog, “Every Day Inspired by the Past.” We would definitely recommend this recipe. The filling was a perfect combination of dark chocolate and cinnamon and the texture was amazing. The link below has the recipe and an illustrated step-by-step tutorial with really good directions.
https://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/chocolate-babka/
You prepare the dough, let it rise, roll it in into a rectangle, add the filling, roll into a log, twist to shape, let it rise again, brush with an egg wash, sprinkle with streusel and bake.
YUM! You will love the smell of your kitchen when you bake this…imagine the scents of bread baking – plus chocolate – plus cinnamon. Does it get any better?
Once it has cooled, slice and enjoy with your favorite cup or tea or coffee! Look at those beautiful slices! It has a wonderful soft texture that crumbles just a bit when you slice it. So good! If you like warm snacks, pop a slice in the microwave for about 10 seconds.
Just for a comparison, I also baked the Chocolate Babka, using a recipe from the King Arthur Flour website.
Their recipe makes two loaves. I shaped one similar to the one above. On the second one I cut the filled dough rolls in half and twisted them together.
That made a really pretty loaf. Another website had suggested that you place the filled dough rolls in the freezer for just a few minutes so that the dough would be easier to cut in half. I would recommend that because the dough is really soft and when the dough is cold you can get a more accurate cut and then it is easier to shape and the filling stays in place better.
The King Arthur recipes had two filling options. One was a smooth chocolate, which they recommended for the dough that you cut and shape. The other filling has toasted walnuts, along with the chocolate and cinnamon and it was so good and the nuts added a nice texture.
The King Arthur recipe was more dense, more like bread, so when you sliced the babka, you could toast it in the toaster for a scrumptious breakfast or snack. Tori Avey’s recipe was lighter in texture and more crumbly – which I preferred and her filling recipe with the dark chocolate combined with the cinnamon was my favorite.
For the King Arthur Flour recipe, click on the link below:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/chocolate-babka-recipe
The link below to King Arthur’s website gives you tips and techniques to use to create different babka shapes.
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2017/04/10/how-to-shape-babka
A fun weekend project! Enjoy being creative in the kitchen with your family!!!
