Chocolate Babka Recipe

On this page I’m sharing a chocolate Babka recipe. Babka is a popular brunch dish during Pesach (Passover) and Easter. Babka is a sweet braided bread that can be filled with all kinds of fillings. Cinnamon and chocolate are the most well-known. I made a chocolate babka and on this page I’m sharing the recipe with you.

Babka

Babka originated in Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and is still a very popular recipe in Jewish communities all over the world. In Israel of course, but also in New York. And as this braided bread is very Instagrammable, you see that it’s gaining popularity all over the world.

I got this chocolate babka recipe from online supermarket Crisp. I think Babka is a great dish on your Easter brunch table, so why not give it a try this Easter? It’s a bread but because it’s also sweet, it feels like dessert. Just like my Nutella Swirl Buns. A perfect combination if you ask me!

The dough for this chocolate babka needs to rest overnight, so start the evening before with your preparations.

Recipe Chocolate Babka

Ingredients:
320 grams flour
4 grams yeast
140 grams sugar
120 ml milk
2 eggs
100 grams butter
15 grams cacaopowder
60 grams dark chocolate, in pieces
65 ml water
A pinch of salt

Mix the flour, yeast, 20 grams of sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Add the milk and eggs and knead until an elastic dough has formed. I used a stand mixer and it took about 5 minutes, by hand it’ll be double.
Cut 40 grams of the butter in cubes and knead it through the dough with your hands. Make a ball of the dough.
Grease a bowl, put the ball in and cover with cling film. Let the dough rest in the fridge overnight (between 8 and 20 hours).

The next day, cut 50 grams of the butter in cubes and let it melt au-bain-marie (in a bowl over boiling water). Turn the fire to low. Add 20 grams sugar, 15 grams cacao powder and the chocolate. Melt and stir until completely mixed. Let it cool down for at least 15 minutes.
Grease a loaf tin with butter.

Roll out the dough on a flour covered surface until you’ve got a rectangle of about 40cm long and 30cm wide. Cover with the chocolate mixture, leaving 1cm off the borders free.
Roll the dough from the long side. Cut the roll in half lengthwise. Put the two halves with the cut-side up next to each other. Cross the 2 strips over each other a few times. Put it in the greased loaf tin and let it rise on room temperature for 90 minutes.
Click here for an instruction video on how to fold the dough.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. Bake the chocolate babka in 30-35 minutes, until gloden-brown.
In the mean-time, make the syrup by mixing the remaining 100 grams of sugar and 65 ml of water on low fire. Stir until dissolved.
When the chocolate babka is ready, steer the syrup over it. It might look like too much syrup, but it isn’t.
Bring the babka to a complete cool before cutting it. You can make it a day in advance and save it in an airtight container for a week.