There are lots of chocolate babbka recipes out there and choosing one you can put your faith in can be difficult. I have been there, done that and got the T-shirt folks! Having read at least 50 babbka recipes and compared and contrasted ingredients, quantities and method, I have come up with a recipe that I think really hits the mark bang on. I haven’t reinvented the wheel with this recipe, it’s just the one I make, and it’s delicious! For something a little avant garde and new, check out my miso caramel pecan babbka. That one really is a brand new world of deliciousness!
But back to the babbka eating world’s firm favourite. Chocolate babbka.
The dough is pretty much taken straight from Yotam Ottolengi’s book Jerusalem, with a few minor tweaks.

The filling however is all me. Cue Julie Andrews, these are a few of my favourite things. Actually, this filling comprises quite a lot of my favourite things! Chocolate, hazelnut, and a hum of espresso. Lavely.
This recipe makes two small babbkas which sounds like a lot, but trust me they disappear alarmingly quickly. It also means that you can throw one to the pride of ravenous lions that is your household, whilst presenting one intact as a gift, or serving it to guests. A whole cooked babbka also freezes well, so you can always go the ‘one to eat, and one to freeze’ route. Personally I have never found that necessary as once baked I find a way to make this babbka appear from its tin multiple times a day! Breakfast? Why not! Dessert after lunch? Certainly. With a cup of tea around 4pm? Would be rude not to! And then my personal favourite…the “it’s been precisely 20 minutes since dinner and I really ought not to go to bed on an empty stomach!”.
There is even better news as far as this babbka is concerned. This babbka, once a few days old, makes the most incredible French toast (eggy bread) in the entire universe. I have served it with caramelised bananas and creme fraiche, and it was really a slice of heaven. This babbka recipe is worth making just to make into French toast.
Check out my post on this wondrous chocolate babbka French toast to get the recipe.
Now enough babbka babble! Let’s get to making. Be a doll and bake this babbka for your bubbah. She’s probably amazing and deserves it!
Quick notes:

1) You can use all dark chocolate chips if you prefer, but I quite like the mix of light and dark.
2) You can leave out the star anise if you don’t have it or you’re not a fan.
3) If you don’t have espresso powder, get it. It is one of the ingredients I find myself using the most when baking. Add it to meringue, marshmallows, whipped cream, buttercream, smoothies, porridge…the list goes on and on. If you have a good coffee extract like Trablit that will work too! Even if you don’t like coffee I urge you not to miss this out. The babbka doesn’t taste of coffee when baked, the coffee simply melds with the cocoa and produces a very aromatic well rounded flavour profile.
4) To store your babbkas, place in air tight cake tins in a cool dark place. Don’t put them in the fridge or they will be dry and sad.

Chocolate hazelnut babbka with espresso recipe:

Makes 2 babbkas
Ingredients:
Brioche dough:
530g all purpose flour
100g sugar
10g instant yeast
3 large eggs
120ml later
3/4 teaspoon salt
150g butter
Filling:
50g icing sugar
30g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon espresso powder
130g dark chocolate melted
120g unsalted butter
100g toasted and crushed hazelnuts
40g dark choc chips (or finely cut from bar)
40g milk chocolate chips
2 tablespoon of light brown sugar
Two pinches salt
Syrup:
260g sugar
160ml water
3 star anise
Method:
1) Place the flour, instant yeast, and sugar in a bowl and stir to combine. Add the water, salt and eggs and combine using a stand mixer with a dough hook or by hand. Leave to knead on the machine for 5 minutes until the dough is smooth. Add dices of room temperature butter one at a time while the dough is kneading, waiting for each piece of butter to be incorporated before adding the next piece. After another 5-10 minutes the dough should be smooth and elastic, with no lumps of butter.
2) Oil a large bowl and place the dough inside. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge for 8-10 hours (or overnight).
3) to make the filling place the dark chocolate (first quantity not the chocolate chips), icing sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder and butter into a pan and melt over low heat. Keep warm until needed or it will solidify. Toast whole hazelnuts in a dry pan for a few minutes until fragrant. Bash them in a ziplock bag with a rolling pin to achieve pieces of various sizes.
4) Retrieve the dough after 8 hours and cut it in half. Roll each half into a square that is 5mm thick and spread the filling on top, leaving a slight border. Sprinkle on top the brown sugar, chocolate chips and crushed, toasted hazelnuts. Repeat for the second babbka.
5) Roll the babbkas up and slice them lengthways with a pizza cutter or sharp knife. Twist the strands around each other, aiming to keep the open part with the layers of dough and filling facing upwards.
6) Place the babbkas in two buttered loaf tins and cover with a tea towl to prove at room temperature for an hour. If your kitchen is cold turn your oven on for 30 seconds (180) and then off again, and then place the covered babbkas in the oven with the door shut.
7) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees or 175 fan and when the oven has come to temperature, bake the babbkas for 30 mins.
8) While the babbkas are baking combine all the ingredients for the glaze in a pan and bring to a boil on a medium flame. Once this glaze is boiling, and all the sugar has dissolved, remove it from the heat. Let the star anise sit in the glaze until needed.
9) When the babbkas have been baking for 30 minutes, bring them out of the oven and top them with the glaze immediately. Divide the glaze equally between the babbkas and use it all!
10) Let the babbkas cool for 15 mins in their tin. Then run a knife around the edges and turn out the babbka.
11) To serve, slice the babbka around 3/4 inch thick and place under the grill to toast. Spread with salted butter and return to the grill once again. When the babbka is golden, toasted and crispy on the top remove and enjoy!
12) Serve alone or with creme fraiche and fruit.
OR!!!
Make into the best French toast in the whole flat world (any Borat fans in the house?)
My chocolate babbka French toast with banana brûlée and creme fraiche is totally divine and worthy of your full attention. Check out my post on how to transform this princess of a bake into an absolute queen of a brunch!