Go to the Recipe: Ultimate Chocolate Babka
This looks really good. I will eventually get to it - probably. Unlike probably most ChefSteps members, I believe, I find the reliance on weights in recipes anathema to enjoyable cooking. Having cooked professionally for over 50 years I can count on one hand how many times I've exclusively used weights for cooking - and they've all been ChefSteps recipes. Weighing every item is so fussy and loathesome for me. Oh well.
I'd argue that you are on the wrong side of history - pretty much all the baking sites now at least include weights, with exceptions being primarily older recipes from way back when you and I were only middle-aged. Blame flour - it doesn't believe in a fixed density.
This turns out great but I think there might be a mistake in the syrup amount.
Step 2 -- Make 250g of Syrup
Step 3 -- Use 220g Syrup from step 2 for the chocolate filling
[...]
Step 8 -- Use 175g of Syrup from step 2 for the final 'soak'
I just used the remaining 30g of Syrup I had after making the filling and it worked fine, but I'm not sure if I should I should have made more syrup, or if the amount is Step 8 is in error.
Similar error in the Cinnamon version...
Step 2 -- Make 90g of Syrup
Not venting or complaining, just trying to know how the recipe should have been made
Made this using a 1.5lb loaf pan and it came out perfect!
I had some trouble with mixing the dough at the start, I think due to using milk/eggs straight from the fridge. The dough was far to stiff to properly mix in the stand mixer and it really resisted incorporating the butter into the dough. Next time I would probably make sure the milk is warm and the eggs at room temperature.
I think the recipe would benefit from providing starting temperature for ingredients like milk/eggs that could greatly affect the dough and fermentation.
Otherwise, everything proceeded smoothly!
It is a small amount of dough to mix and using the paddle is helpful. The better option is to make a larger batch of dough and portion to freeze one. You can very well warm eggs and milk when making brioche, I just find it helpful to have a colder dough when beating in butter. The friction from the mixing may warm the brioche dough too much.
The syrup is to be boiled for 1 minute which will leave you with 400 g of syrup. 220 for the filling and 180 left for the soak. The chocolate cake required more syrup opposed to the sweeter filling in the Cinnamon Babka.
So, if you had extra syrup it would have not been as saturated but glad to hear all is well. Same with the Cinnamon Babka. 90 g water and 90 g sugar boiled for one minute will produce 20% less in weight.
Ah that is helpful! Thank you
Fun recipe! I ran into an issue that I've hit making babka before: a few of the layers remained thin and gummy after baking . I was hitting 180°F to 185°F near the end of the bake. Any suggestions here?
That is a quality of being underbaked. If you do not like the gooey, then bake for longer to 190-200°F. You may not want to roll it as tight too for your liking.
Thanks, that was good advice! I gave the cinnamon babka a go and results were excellent: rolled a little less tightly and baked for longer. I also hate to admit it, but I think I prefer the cinnamon version in general here: the balance of filling to brioche felt more rounded to me.
Any advice on cooking temps and times if doing this divided into muffin pans?
I divided mine into 12 (roughly) equal portions and plopped them into my muffin pan, and after the initial 15 minutes at 350º the centers had already reached 175º, so I pulled them out of the oven.
I'm not so good at improvising! 😅
Does that sound about right?
Or should my initial bake at 350º have been shorter — to allow for some time in the oven at 300º?
I had the same issue with warm milk and room temperature eggs.
Halfway through Step 1.
At this point, it was going fine. Shaggy dough and everything. Then the next sentence happened...
About 5 seconds into "medium speed for 5 minutes" the dough seized up into an impenetrable ball that really caused my KitchenAid to struggle and dance around. Not wanting to destroy the motor, I tried switching to a dough hook, which worked for a little bit. Neither the hook or paddle worked very well, I tried switching back and forth from the paddle to the hook as I added the butter which mostly heated up from the friction and smeared around the sides of the bowl.
Ultimately, the dough wasn't kneadable by hand at all, just super buttery.
Then that first room temperature proof was... odd. It didn't double, and butter seeped out of it, pooling at the bottom. I was disheartened to say the least.
But after the next step — chilling in the fridge for 2 hours in the 1/4 sheet pan — it behaved more like the written recipe.
