Chocolate Walnut Babka

This Chocolate Walnut Babka will become one of your favorite sweet yeasted celebration breads. 

Babka is a kind of sweet challah-like enriched bread laced with cinnamon, fruit, and/or chocolate. 

There are versions that are twisted and topped with streusel, versions that are rolled and piled into a bread pan, and versions that are baked into a fluted pan. 

This particular recipe involves a vanilla and cinnamon brioche-style dough filled with a chocolate and walnut filling. All of the filling is rolled up into the sweet yeasted dough. Next, the dough is split in half lengthwise and the two halves are twisted around each other, cut side up, before they are placed in a bread pan. 

Babka is a sweet swirly bread with Jewish Eastern European roots. The word "babka" is a take on the word for grandmother. Evidently, grandmothers would take leftover challah and incorporate it into bread swirled with cinnamon.

Adding chocolate to babka evidently was invented by New York bakers as an adaptation to the original cinnamon version. There is no reason why you can't swirl anything into babka, including blueberries or peanut butter! 

In the past, when I heard the word "babka," all I could think about was a Seinfeld episode. Now I know that if the bakery runs out, I can make my own!

 

Here is what you will need to make this babka:

Eggs

Unbleached all purpose flour

Nonfat dry milk. I use King Arthur's Special Dry Milk

Instant yeast. I prefer SAF Red or, in this case, SAF Gold. The Gold version is good when there is sugar, eggs, and butter, but the Red version is fine too. It might just require a longer rising time. 

Cinnamon, sugar, salt, vanilla, and lots of butter

For the filling, you will need more cinnamon, sugar, unsweetened cocoa, butter, chocolate chips (preferably mini), and roasted walnuts. You could also substitute pecans (which I did this time). 

The streusel topping is pretty much a revelation. It's a mixture of melted butter, cinnamon, powdered sugar, and all purpose flour. 

You mix it all together and the form it into clumps before sprinkling it over the shaped loaf. Once the loaf emerges from the oven, you might have to resist the urge to pick off bits of it and eating it straight away. 

How to Shape this Babka:

First, once the dough has risen, roll it out into a 9 inch by 18 inch rectangle.

Next, spread the dough with the cinnamon and chocolate filling and sprinkle it with the chocolate chips and walnuts.

After that, roll up the dough, beginning with the short end, until you have a log. Slice the log in half, lengthwise, and then cross the two halves over each other in the middle, with the cut side up.

Continue to braid the two halves of the dough on both sides, making sure both cut sides remain facing up. Seal the ends and place the dough into a loaf pan.

You bake this bread at a fairly low temperature, 300 degrees F. It's really helpful to have an instant read thermometer to make sure that the bread is fully baked. The interior temperature should reach 190 degrees F.

You could start the bread in a 325 degree F oven for the first 10 to 15 minutes if you prefer for the oven spring, and then lower the oven temperature to 300 degrees after that. Be sure to watch the loaf carefully so that the top does not burn.

Sweet Doughs and Breads

• Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bread from That Recipe
• Chocolate Walnut Babka from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Eggless Sesame Brioche Buns from Magical Ingredients
• Khaliat Nahal from Pandemonium Noshery
• Rum Raisin Bread from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
• Speculoos or Nutella Braided Bread from Art of Natural Living

We share Recipes From Our Dinner Table! Join our group and share your recipes, too! While you're at it, join our Pinterest board, too!

This post was updated in May, 2022 with new photos and shaping instructions. Originally published in October, 2012. 

Chocolate Walnut Babka

Yield: 16 slices

Author: Karen's Kitchen Stories

Prep time: 25 MinCook time: 1 HourInactive time: 3 H & 30 MTotal time: 4 H & 55 M

This Chocolate Walnut Babka will become one of your favorite sweet yeasted celebration breads.

Ingredients

Dough

• 141 grams (1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons) lukewarm water (about 100 degrees F)
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 375 grams (3 cups plus 2 tablespoons) all purpose flour
• 18 grams (1/6 cup) special dry or nonfat dry milk
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 50 grams (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
• 7.5 grams (1 1/4 teaspoons) salt
• 71 grams (5 tablespoons) room temperature unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling

• 50 grams (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 14 grams (1/6 cup) unsweetened cocoa (natural or Dutch process)
• 1/4 teaspoon espresso powder
• 29 grams (2 tablespoons) melted butter
• 85 grams (1/2 cup) finely chopped chocolate chips
• 57 grams (1/2 cup) chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted

Glaze and Streusel

• For the glaze: 1 large egg with a pinch of salt, beaten
• For the streusel: 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 37 grams (1/3 cup) powdered sugar
• 30 grams (1/4 cup) all purpose flour

Instructions

1. Dump all of the dough ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer and knead for about a minute on low until everything is just combined.
2. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 20 minutes.
3. Knead the dough with the dough hook for about 7 minutes on medium low.
4. Let the dough rise until doubled, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
5. Deflate the dough and set it aside, covered, while you make the filling.
6. Grease a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
7. In a small bowl, mix the sugar, cinnamon, cocoa, espresso, and melted butter.
8. Roll out the dough into a 9" by 18" rectangle.
9. With an offset spatula, spread the filling on the dough, leaving about a one inch border along the edges. Sprinkle the chips and nuts over the filling.
10. Beginning with the 9" end, roll the rectangle into a loaf as you would cinnamon rolls, sealing the seam
11. Slice the rolled up dough in half, lengthwise, and place the center of one half over the center of the other half, cut sides up, forming an "X." Keeping the cut sides up, twist the two pieces over each other like a two-strand braid. Tuck the ends under and place the braid in the prepared pan, cut side up. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until the middle crests over the top of the pan by an inch and poking the dough with your finger leaves a dent, 1 to 2 hours.
12. Prepare the egg wash and set aside.
13. Prepare the streusel by mixing the ingredients and squeezing it into crumbles with your hand. Set aside.
14. When the loaf has risen, brush the top with the egg wash, and sprinkle with the streusel. Place the loaf in the oven and immediately lower the oven temperature to 300 degrees F.
15. Bake the loaf for 50 to 60 minutes, until it reaches about 190 degrees. Tent with foil at the 35 minute mark.
16. Remove the loaf from the oven and run a knife or spatula around the edges. Let the loaf cool in the pan for ten minutes, remove it from the pan, place it on a cooling rack, and let cool completely.

Nutrition Facts

Calories

220.51

Fat (grams)

9.11

Sat. Fat (grams)

4.12

Carbs (grams)

31.38

Fiber (grams)

1.47

Net carbs

29.91

Sugar (grams)

10.87

Protein (grams)

4.07

Sodium (milligrams)

206.63

Cholesterol (grams)

26.05

https://www.karenskitchenstories.com/2012/10/chocolate-walnut-babka-twelve-loaves.html

Karen's Kitchen Stories

babka

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This recipe comes from King Arthur Flour, and was inspired by A Blessing of Bread by Maggie Glezer.