This morning I woke up craving a slice of warm chocolate babka. Babka is a beautiful and delicious yeasted bread filled with chocolate sauce, pecans and sugar and rolled in a braid shape. I pulled out my Ottolenghi Jeursalem cookbook and for the first time tried to make a Babka from scratch. AI did halve the ingredients to make one loaf only.
I had Mila and Liam help me make the dough and they were very excited to watch how it doubled in size in a few hours. These two little munchkins are always up for some baking.
The recipe was simple, but did require time and patience. I changed a couple of ingredients: I replaced the lemon zest in the dough with orange zest, as orange and chocolate is one of my favorite flavors. I also used two large eggs instead of 1.5 extra-large eggs, as I divided the recipe in half.
Chocolate Babka Recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi (Jerusalem Cookbook) 2nd April 2013
I changed a couple of ingredients: I replaced the lemon zest in the dough with orange zest, as orange chocolate is one of my favorite combinations and I divided the recipe in half to make one loaf, though I could have eaten two.
One tip I have for this recipe is to use a silicone mat to roll out and work the dough. I did not refrigerate the dough at all and did not need to add any additional flour to the dough by using the silicone mat. This kept the babka nice and fluffy.
Ingredients
For the bread
530g plain flour
100g caster sugar
2 sachets (14g) dried yeast
zest of 1 orange
3 free-range eggs
120ml water
1/3 tsp salt
150g unsalted butter, softened
sunflower oil for greasing
For the chocolate filling
50g icing sugar
30g cocoa powder
130g dark chocolate
2 tbsp caster sugar
120g butter, melted
100g pecans, roughly chopped
For the sugar glaze
260g caster sugar
160ml water
Preparation
In a bowl, add the flour, sugar, yeast and zest and mix together using your hands or a food processor with the dough hook. Add the eggs and water and mix for a few minutes until the dough comes together. Add salt and start adding the butter, a cube at a time, letting it all melt into the dough. Mix for five-ten minutes, until you obtain an elastic, smooth and sticky dough.
Grease a large bowl with sunflower oil, place the ball of dough into it, cover with cling film and leave to rise overnight or for at least half a day.
The next day, start by preparing the chocolate filling. Mix the icing sugar, cocoa powder, melted dark chocolate and melted butter. Beat until you get a smooth, spreadable paste.
Grease two 2lb loaf tins and line the bottom with parchment baking paper.
Divide the dough into two parts, work one part on a floured surface, leave the other part covered in the fridge.
Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough onto the surface, then trim the edges with a knife to obtain a 38cm x 28cm rectangle. Spread half of the chocolate filling over the dough, leaving a 2 cm border all around. Sprinkle half of the pecans and one tablespoon of caster sugar.
Brush a little of water over the long edge of the dough on your left. Using both hands, roll up the rectangle like a roulade, starting from the long side on your right, rolling towards the left side. Roll the dough completely into a perfect, thick log, sitting on its seam.
With a knife, trim off 2 cm of both ends. Gently, cut the roll into two, lenghtways, from the top to the bottom. Position the cut sides facing up, gently press the ends together. Lift the right half over the left half. Repeat with the left half over the right half and press the ends together to seal it. Carefully lift the loaf and place into the tin.
Repeat the process with the remaining dough. Then, cover the loaves with a wet tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for 1/1.2 hours. Preheat the oven to 170 °C. After the cakes have risen, remove the tea towels and place them on the middle shelf for 30 minutes.
Make the syrup while the cakes are in the oven. Place the sugar and water into a saucepan over a medium heat. As soon as the sugar dissolves and the syrup starts to boil, remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.
When the cakes are baked and are out of the oven, brush them with the syrup. You may find that there is too much syrup, but the recipe recommends to use it all up. Remove the cakes from the tins to cool down completely.
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