Rachel
- Dec 15, 2019
- 4 min read

Sourdough Chocolate Babka Bread

Updated: Dec 8, 2020

This babka recipe yields an unbelievably soft and delicious result!!! The rich chocolate is encased in a soft melt-in-your-mouth bread and the outside is lightly crisp. These are just spectacular! The sticky dough is tricky, but not too difficult to work with. Truthfully you could make this into cinnamon babka, or any variation you would like.

I simplified and modified the original recipe, which is from: https://www.artisanbryan.com/post/how-to-make-sourdough-chocolate-babka-with-streusel-de-coco-recipe

This recipe yields 2 loaves or 12 buns.

Ingredients:

Levain:

50 grams mature sourdough starter
25 grams whole wheat Flour
75 grams Bread Flour
90 grams Warm Water

Dough:

250 grams Bread Flour
250 grams AP flour
215 grams Levain
240 grams Warm Milk (100°F)
2 eggs (120 g)
113 grams Unsalted Butter, room temp
100 grams Sugar
4 grams salt
4 grams Honey
1 gram (1/2 tsp.) Vanilla Extract

Filling:

1/4 cup granulated sugar (50 g)
1/4 cup heavy cream or half-and-half (89 ml)
A pinch of salt
3 ounces 70% chocolate coarsely chopped (85 g)
4 tablespoons salted butter, diced (56 g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Streusel topping:

2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour (15 g)
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp. melted butter
15 g chopped chocolate or mini chocolate chips
Egg wash: 1 egg yolk, 1 tsp. water mixed

Directions:

Day 1, morning:

Mix together levain ingredients and place in a clean jar. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 3-4 hours.
When the levain is ready, mix together the flour and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
Then in a medium bowl add the eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, and honey. Mix well.
Add your starter into the egg mixture and mix by hand until somewhat incorporated.
Pour in half the flour and mix well by hand. Then add in the rest and mix until a dough forms with no dry flour left.
Take out onto a clean work surface and add the butter.
Mix and knead to incorporate the butter, it will take about 20 minutes and you will get a semi-smooth but sticky dough. The slap and fold technique is helpful for this sticky dough. Make sure it passes the windowpane test.
Then place it in a clean bowl and cover for bulk fermentation (6 hours). I let mine rise in a turned off oven with the light on. If you hand-mixed, give it a series of 4 total sets of 4 stretch and folds about every 30-60 minutes to continue to help the gluten formation process.

Day 1, Afternoon:

After you notice your dough has risen, cover with plastic wrap so it's touching the dough surface and cover the bowl with more plastic wrap or a dish towel. Then put it into the fridge overnight to continue developing flavor and a strong structure. Refrigerate 10-12 hours at 40°F.

Day 2, morning:

Before you take your dough out, make the filling: In a saucepan over medium heat combine sugar, vanilla, cream and salt. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until sugar completely dissolves, about 5 minutes. Stir in chocolate and butter and mix until smooth. Let cool to room temperature (about 1 hour). You can cheat a little by freezing/refrigerating 5-10 minutes a few times until it's thicker.
Then take the cold dough out and roll into a large long rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick. Spread the filling inside, leaving an edge uncovered for the seam.
If making loaves, roll up the log, pinch the seam shut, and cut into two halves.
Place on a lined baking tray and freeze 5-10 minutes to firm up.
Then slice the two logs in half, exposing the filling. For each loaf, twist the halves together, with open edges facing up, so that it is in a twist that will fit in your loaf pan. If making swirl buns (this recipe makes about 12), see a Youtube tutorial for Kanelbullar.
Butter your loaf pans well and add the dough inside. Cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap and let rise for 2-4 hours in a warm place until visibly risen and puffy (2 hours at 80-90°F and 4 hours at 70-75°F).
Make the streusel in the meantime. Chill it and then crumble it into smaller pieces.
When the dough is ready, brush with egg wash and top with streusel.
Bake loaves at 375°F for 40 minutes, and then reduce the temperature o 350°F and bake another 10-15 minutes, or until 200°F internally. If making buns, bake for 25-30 minutes at 375°F
Let loaves cool 10 minutes in the pan before removing and at least 1 hour before serving. If you made buns, let cool 15 minutes before eating!

Here I show how to make them:

This is what my starter looked like before making the levain. It is at its peak rise, meaning it's at "maturity"

Epic. Anyway, now to the levain:

After mixing the levain together and before rising. There's 2x the amount above because I was making enough for another loaf of brioche.

After rising. Time to start making that dough!

So, mix together the milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla together very well before adding the levain.

After adding the levain and before mixing in.

Mixed in the levain. You don't have to mix completely. Next we add the flour and salt mixture!

After mixing in the flour mixture. Next we'll place it on the counter to add the butter and start kneading.

Before mixing in the butter and kneading.

After kneading! Nw we transfer it to a bowl to start the first rise!

Before the 6 hour rise (with 4 sets of stretch and folds)

After the 6 hour rise. She puffed up quite a bit! Time for the overnight fridge rest!

The next day:

Remember to make the chocolate sauce so it can cool before the dough is ready! After warming the crema and the sugar is melted, you add in the chocolate and butter.