Babka

        After making a brioche dough, I could not stop thinking about making Babka. From what I understand, Babka is an Eastern European yeasted coffee cake. It is made from a beautiful dough filled with butter. It is swirled with a chocolate filling and topped with a chocolate streusel. There is so much chocolate in this recipe! I am so glad that I tried making it!

        The day before I wanted to have this bread is when I started making the dough. I made this on a Friday night so that I could wake up on Saturday and finish the process. To make the dough, I started by warming milk until it was lukewarm. I added my yeast and a pinch of sugar and let that sit. While that was sitting, I put flour, sugar, salt, vanilla, lemon zest, and nutmeg into my stand mixer with a dough hook. I mixed together the flour and other ingredients while pouring in the yeast mixture. I also added in the eggs. The dough started to come together, so I started adding in butter slowly. I did end up adding 1 tablespoon of additional flour because it was getting quite sticky at one point. I followed the rest of the directions with kneading the dough in the mixer. I buttered a large bowl, placed my dough into it, and put it in the fridge to rest overnight.

        The following morning, I started by making the fudge filling. This consisted of warming cream, sugar, and salt together. Followed by adding the chocolate, butter, and vanilla. This needs to come to room temperature before using. I also made the streusel to have that ready when the time came to need it. I did make the sugar syrup as well. I prepared two loaf pans with butter and parchment before beginning to shape my dough. I cut the dough in half, rolled it out to a large rectangle, and spread half of the filling around the rectangle. Then, I rolled up the long side of the dough, covered it in plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes. I pulled it out of the freezer, cut the dough in half, and twisted the bread around itself to make a braid. I put it into the prepared pan and let it rise. I baked the loaf just as describe in the instructions.

        I’m not going to lie. I was very nervous the whole time I was making the bread. It was one of those things that took quite a while to make and needed a lot of love. I wanted it to turn out perfect! I was so very happy with how it did turn out! I loved the flavors and texture. This recipe by New York Times Cooking is a really great one (link below)!

Original recipe link here!