Babka: Chocolate Bread With a Twist
It's a project to make but a treat to eat!
There’s nothing I like more than a complicated baking project that takes me hours—sometimes days—to complete. It’s probably why I love making sourdough breads so much, especially my many attempts to duplicate the rye bread I remember from childhood.
Babka, a delightfully twisty layered bread that I think I probably first encountered as a young adult at a Jewish deli in New York, seemed like the perfect rainy day project—that is if there was ever a rainy day in L.A. Of course, we’re in the middle of what appears to be an unending drought, so no precipitation in the forecast—not even a measly sprinkle. But the weather has been overcast and dreary and, for spoiled Southern Californians, on the cold side (50s and 60s—okay, don’t hate me!).
Babka, like so many other Jewish foods with Eastern European roots—bagels, challah and matzo ball soup, for example—has gone mainstream. Possibly a famous Seinfeld episode had something to do with sparking the trend. In the show, which first aired on Feb. 3, 1994, Jerry and Elaine try to buy a chocolate babka to bring to a dinner party but another couple, who coincidentally is attending the same event, gets the last one. They end up buying a cinnamon babka, which Elaine considers a “lesser babka.”
These days the internet is awash with creative babka variations. I found a recipe for Key Lime Pie Babka that sounds delicious! The blogger, who admits to being obsessed with babka, offers up other varieties for the adventurous baker, including Sweet Corn and Raspberry Babka and Blueberry Lemonade Babka, among others.
While these sound intriguing, I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to babka—plus which, in this house at least, chocolate is very popular. As is challah. And a chocolate babka (the word babka is possibly related to the diminutive form of the Polish word for grandmother or bubbe, the Yiddish equivalent) is kind of a fancy mashup of challah dough and chocolate filling. Could anything be better?
My go-to chocolate babka recipe is from David Lebovitz, an extraordinary baker, blogger, cookbook author whose long list of credentials include working as a pastry chef at Alice Waters’ famous Chez Panisse in Berkeley in its early days. His blog, davidlebovitz.com, which he started in 1999 to coincide with his first book, Room for Dessert, is a joy to read and a source for some of my favorite recipes, including this one. Currently he writes from his home in Paris. His recipes are always clear, fun to read and accompanied by stories that make you want to move to Paris and live in his kitchen! He recently began blogging on the Substack platform as well. You can find a link to it below:
I found other popular chocolate babka recipes that used Nutella and chocolate chips in the filling. One I hope to try soon is from pastry chef Uri Scheft and is credited with sparking the most recent babka craze. It’s wildly popular at bakeries Tel Aviv and New York City. In Scheft’s version of the recipe in The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List (a very fun and useful book, by the way), he includes a streusel topping, adding to the coffee cake vibe of this pastry.
Lebovitz’s recipe calls for a chocolate filling made from butter, sugar, chopped dark chocolate and unsweetened powdered chocolate. Here’s the link: https://www.davidlebovitz.com/chocolate-babka-kranz-bread-recipe/
His pictures of the process of making it are excellent, so be sure to check it out.
The recipe is based on another that Lebovitz adapted. Among his adaptations is using crushed brownie or cookie crumbs in the filling. I used crushed mini chocolate hazelnut biscotti from Trader Joe’s. They were so hard, I had to whack them with a rolling pin which sent several spinning across the room despite my having covered them in foil. Using some crushed brownies or chocolate wafers would have been a better choice, though the flavor was perfect as chopped toasted hazelnuts were also in the filling.
Some Notes on Making a Chocolate Babka—Plus Some Changes
The dough includes only a teaspoon of sugar, which I increased to a tablespoon. Perhaps it doesn’t matter as the babka is saturated in a sugar syrup after it comes out of the oven.
I refrigerated the dough overnight, as I often do with breads when I make the dough late at night. It’s a great way of spacing out yeast recipes with multiple steps.
Ingredients for the filling, including 72% cacao chocolate chips. When I made the filling, the sugar didn’t melt as expected, so it remained a bit crunchy in the final product, though, perhaps because of the chopped nuts, I didn’t notice. In the future, though, I would use superfine sugar, which you can even make yourself in a food processor.
After allowing the dough to rest at room temperature for about an hour, it rolled out beautifully on my large, lightly floured wooden board. Take time to make sure it’s rolled evenly and approximates the 12 x 20-inch dimensions in the recipe. (Mine was probably more like 11 x 18.)
I used Trader Joe’s 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate Chips in my filling, since the recipe called for 70% cacao chocolate. They have a lower sugar count than other dark and semisweet chocolate, so if you want to up the sweetness, you could switch.
Filling: Chocolate spread, chopped toasted hazelnuts and cookie crumbs. (Nothing says you can’t substitute Nutella and chocolate chips!) Be generous with the chocolate filling. I was a little sparing, hoping to keep the pastry neat, with not too much spillage, but I think a sloppy, well-filled babka is probably better (can you ever have too much chocolate?). As it was, I ended up with quite a bit of leftover filling. However, it’s SO delicious that, other than spooning it directly into your mouth, spreading it on the finished babka for added decadence is a perfect solution!
Slicing the rolled up pastry in half lengthwise is probably the most satisfying part, other than executing the twists (make sure the pastry is facing up as you do the twisting!). Suddenly you see the beauty of those striations of dough and chocolate, with bits of filling dripping and dropping onto the board (yes, do take a taste!)
Once you have twisted the sides together into an 18- or 19-inch roll, fitting that into your prepared 9-inch loaf pan seems like it will be quite a challenge, but actually it isn’t as hard as you might think. Just compress it accordion-style and lift the whole thing in into the pan. You’ll immediately see the trademark twists and turns that mark a babka. Hurray!
All squished together! Lebovitz says to let the dough rise in a warm place for about two hours. I put it in a slightly warmed oven (not too much or you’ll bake your babka prematurely!) and found it had risen over the top in about 1 1/2 hours. So keep checking.
Beware of over-baking. The bread seems to cook rather quickly at 375 degrees. Mine may have been slightly to brown on top, so I worried about dryness and made sure to drench the top with a goodly dose of sugar syrup. Also be careful to let the bread rest until cool in the pan. If you remove it while it’s still hot, those beautiful chocolate striations may open into chasms and your bread will fall apart.
Final Thoughts
Making babka, like rugelach, about which I wrote last week, is lot of work. Why bother when you can buy a wonderful chocolate babka made in Brooklyn at Trader Joe’s or order a Russ & Daughters loaf from Goldbelly? For some, it’s a waste of time. You’ll never equal what expert bakers have perfected over the years. But for me it’s a fun challenge. After years of trying, I’m still working on rye bread, so right now, on the last day of Hanukkah, I’m on a new learning curve with babka. Maybe I’ll try cinnamon babka next. Is it a lesser babka? I’ll let you know.
Do you have a favorite babka? Please tell me about it! Meanwhile, happy baking—and eating!
See you next time!
I've always wanted to try making one, but I always think they look too hard. Now I see why that's because they ARE so hard. Yours looks like a beauty!
Ohhh. Mouth watering. Great post.