Chocolate babka
- Published: 20 Feb 17
- Updated: 1 Jun 25
This decadent chocolate babka, swirled with cinnamon-spiced chocolate, is well worth the challenge. Follow pastry expert Ella Tarn’s step-by-step recipe to make it for yourself. Serve for brunch, afternoon tea or any time you need perking up.
“As the latest rediscovered tea time treat, babka is having a bit of a moment,” says Ella. “Its roots lie in Eastern European and Jewish baking and it straddles the line between a yeasted bread and a cake, with beautiful swirly layers of cinnamon-laced chocolate. It’s not the quickest thing to make and the dough can be tricky to handle, but one’s thing’s for sure: no one will be able to stop at just one slice. For baking fans, this is one challenge that’s worth rising to.”
Team member Rebecca Woollard is a fan: “One slice of this buttery, slightly cakey bread turned into two, then two turned into about half the loaf. I’m not proud… but neither am I sorry.”
Browse more sweet bread recipes.
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Makes 1 loaf (serves 8-10) -
Hands-on time 35 min, oven time 1 hour, plus rising, proving, chilling and cooling
Nutrition
- Calories
- 388kcals
- Fat
- 22.5g (13.5g saturated)
- Protein
- 6.8g
- Carbohydrates
- 38.3g (18.6g sugars)
- Fibre
- 2.5g
- Salt
- 0.3g
delicious. tips
When incorporating the butter into the dough, make sure the butter really is at room temperature or it won’t mix in properly. Give it at least an hour out of the fridge. Don’t microwave it to soften it, as too-warm butter will make the dough greasy.
Let the chocolate filling cool to the point where it’s still fluid and only just warm. If it gets too cold it will seize (turn hard) so warm it up again gently, stirring over a low heat.
The dough is very soft, so flour the work surface and rolling pin generously when rolling.
As the dough is so soft it might stretch when twisting, but don’t worry. It will look much neater after it bakes than when it’s been put into the loaf tin.
Once the babka is in the oven, don’t be tempted to open the oven door before 25 minutes. If you do, you could lower the temperature and cause the loaf to collapse.
The babka will sink a little towards the end of baking and as it cools, but that’s normal.
As this is such a soft, sticky dough you’ll find it a lot easier to use a stand mixer if you have one. If you don’t, follow our guide for beating butter into dough by hand – but be warned, it’s hard work.
Babka is best eaten on the day it’s made, but it will keep for up to 24 hours wrapped in cling film.