Double Chocolate Babka
This babka is for chocolate lovers. Layers of rich, smooth chocolate ganache, semisweet and milk chocolate chips and a sweet brioche dough make for an amazingly delicious and sweet treat. This recipe makes two loaves if you want to share but one taste and you might keep both for yourself.
Servings 2 Loaves
Equipment
- 1 Stand Mixer
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 Bench scraper
- 2 Loaf tins a round cake tin will work too.
Ingredients
Demi Brioche Ingredients
- 550 grams bread flour
- 85 grams sugar
- 13 grams salt
- 9 grams dry yeast
- 210 grams whole milk
- 200 grams eggs about 4 large eggs
- 150 grams unsalted butter, soft
Chocolate Ganache
- 40 grams brown sugar
- 65 grams orange juice
- 75 grams milk chocolate
- 75 grams semisweet chocolate
- 90 grams butter, unsalted
- 1 gram salt
Babka Filling
- 150 grams milk chocolate chips
- 150 grams semisweet chocolate chips roughly chopped if they're large discs
Syrup for Brushing
- 100 grams sugar
- 50 grams water
Instructions
Demi Brioche Instructions
- Take the butter out of the fridge and cut pieces 1/2" thick and set aside.
- heat 50 grams of the milk until warm, around 105 degrees. Add the yeast to the milk and stir to combine. Begin prepping your other ingredients while the yeast starts to activate.
- Add the dry ingredients to the bowl of your stand mixer and mix by hand with the dough hook attachment.
- Once yeast is nice and bubbly, add to the dry ingredients along with the remainder of the milk to the flour mixture.
- Mix on medium speed for 8-10 minutes or until the dough begins pulling away from the bowl and sticking to the dough hook
- With the mixer on medium speed, begin adding the butter a tablespoon at a time. Once all of the butter has been incorporated, mix on high speed until the dough is shiny and passes the windowpane test.
- Transfer the dough to a clean bowl, cover with cling film and and leave to proof until doubled in size, 1-2 hours depending on how warm it is in your kitchen.
Chocolate Ganache
- While the dough is proofing, prepare the chocolate ganache filling.
- Combine all ganache ingredients into a double boiler and heat, stirring gently to melt all ingredients.
- Once all ingredients have been incorporated and the mixture has thickened up a bit, remove from heat and let cool before using.
Babka Assembly
- Once the dough has doubled in size, turn out onto a lightly floured surface.
- Using a rolling pin, roll out into a long thin rectangle. The dough should be between ⅛ and ¼" thick
- Spread the cooled chocolate ganache on top of the dough.
- Sprinkle the milk and semisweet chips in an even layer on top of the ganache.
- From the long side of the rectangle, starting in the middle and working your way out bit by bit, roll up the dough tightly. You may need to lift up and stretch the dough as you roll to ensure that the dough rolls tightly
- Once the dough is rolled up, cut the log in half to make two loaves. Next, cutdown the center of the log to reveal the layers.
- Twist the two halves together and lay into a parchment lined loaf tin. Repeat with the other half of the dough.
- Leave the loaves to proof until puffy, around 1.5 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit when it looks like the loaves are looking about ready
- Bake for 40-50 minutes or until very golden brown. If the loaf is getting too dark, cover with aluminum foil to prevent burning.
- While the loaves are baking, make the syrup. Combine the sugar and water in a sauce pan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to ensure the sugar dissolves. Once the mixture is boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes to allow some of the water to boil off and create a thick syrup. Remove from heat and let cool.
- Remove the babka from the oven when done brush generously with the syrup. Leave in the tin to cool.