Early in December last year, I received my monthly Taste of Home Magazine. It featured a chocolate babka, which I immediately knew I had to bake. However, the Taste of Home recipe used baker’s yeast, so I searched for sourdough versions. And there were plenty out there:

However, my most reliable go-to sourdough source, the Perfect Loaf, has become my recipe of choice. He describes his recipe like this:

“This dough is straightforward, playing at not quite the enrichment level of brioche (or my cinnamon rolls), but not exactly lean, either. I feel it’s just right: not cloying, not overly rich, and certainly not dry or under-flavored. And while it unquestionably looks drenched, the interior is not — the interplay between the crust and crumb is wonderfully balanced.

But let’s be clear: this is a sticky, gooey, sinfully delicious treat that makes the taste buds merrily move and pop.

 Maurizio Leo, The Perfect LoaF
 Let King Arthur Baking help you. learn how to shape your Babka.

But while Leo’s recipe is a sourdough treasure, it was my first time using a kitchen scale. I kept forgetting to take the tare weight before each addition. I am sure that I added too much  Sweet Sourdough Starter. And I skipped the cold ferment that would have firmed up the butter in the enriched dough, which made the dough so soft that I had trouble braiding it. In fact, it was so soft that I could not transfer it to parchment. So it became a Babka loaf as seen in the first picture below.

I hope that you can learn from my mistakes. Still, as it baked alongside a country sourdough loaf, it filled the house with a heavenly chocolate aroma that was hard to beat!

  • Loaf Shape
  • Ring Shape
  • Boule Shape
Babka can be shaped in many ways, each delicious and appealing in presentation.
Rosemary Malloy’s Sourdough Chocolate Babka

Sourdough Chocolate Babka Recipe

Serving Size:
8–12 slices
Time:
2 days
Difficulty:
High

Levain (Sweet Sourdough Starter) Ingredients

Levain (Sweet Sourdough Starter) Directions

  1. Three hours before you plan to mix the other ingredients, combine the active starter, water, and flour (a sweet sourdough recipe requires an already solidly established, active sourdough start to get it going right).
  2. Loosely cover your starter jar; it should be ready in about 3 hours if you put it somewhere warm, 78-80°F (26-27°C). If your kitchen is cold, warm the water you are mixing in to get as close to 80°F (27°C) as you can.
  3. Allow 3–6 hours for fermentation. Start should be bubbly and float in water or milk when tested.

Ingredients for Dough

  • 2⅓ cup (310g) All-purpose Flour
  • ⅔ cup (138g) mild, mature, levain
  • 1 cup (107g) cold, whole milk
  • 2 large eggs (107g) cold
  • 7 Tbsp (100g) unsalted butter at room temp
  • 2½ Tbsp (29g) caster sugar* (see note below)
  • 1⅜ tsp (8g) salt

Directions for Dough

  1. Before mixing other ingredients, cut the butter into 1/2″ pats. Let this sit at room temperature until it is added to the dough below.
  2. Using a stand mixer fitted with its dough hook, add the flour, milk, eggs, salt, half of the sugar (* process regular white sugar in a blender until it is very fine), and the levain to the mixing bowl.
  3. Then turn it to a low setting, mixing until everything is well incorporated; let the dough rest, for 10 minutes
  4. Once rested, set the mixer to medium speed and mix the dough for 5 minutes until it pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
  5. While the mixer is running, slowly stream in the remaining sugar and mix for another 1-2 minutes.
  6. While the mixer is still set on medium speed, add the softened butter, but just one pat at a time. Wait for each pat to be absorbed into the dough before adding add the next pat. This process could take as much as 5 minutes to have all the butter mixed into the dough.
  7. After the butter has been added, run the mixer a few more minutes until you get a smooth dough and it begins clinging to the dough hook.
  8. Though the dough will likely not pass the windowpane test, it should be developed enough to move forward
  9. For the bulk ferment, first place the dough into a covered container, someplace warm—78-80°F (26-27°C) to rest for 30 minutes.
  10. Then do a set of stretch and folds; repeat this step again in 30 more minutes.
  11. Once the dough begins to rise a bit, place it in a fridge overnight

Ingredients for Filling

  • 5.5 Tbl (75g) unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup (85g) Semisweet  Chocolate Chips
  • 1/2 cup (110g) Brown Sugar
  • 3¼ TBL (25g) Cocoa Powder

Directions for Filling

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.
  2. Take it off the heat, and add the sugar and chocolate; stir this together until the chocolate has melted and smooths out.
  3. Stir in cocoa powder until incorporated. Let this cool until it’s ready to use.

Final Ingredients

  • Egg Wash: 1 whole egg and 1 Tbsp water 
  • Simple Syrup: 1/4 cup (52g ) granulated sugar with 1/4 cup (52g ) water. 

Shaping, Proofing, and Baking the Babka

  1. Roll the chilled dough out into a rectangle, about 12 inches by 10 inches
  2. Spread the filling over all the dough surface, leaving about 1 inch clear of filling on the farthest side from you
  3. Starting with the side closest to you, roll the dough into a tight jelly-roll.
    Leo advises, “It’s important for the dough to be rolled up rather tight, so pull the dough at each revolution of the cylinder.
    “Important: Place the rolled-up log on a baking sheet and place it into the freezer for 15 minutes (this makes it much easier to cut and braid).”
  4. Split the jelly-roll longwise in half, and braid the dough. (For ideas on how to shape the dough, click here.)
  5. Place the braided dough into a parchment-lined baking vessel.
  6. Cover with a bag, and let it proof for 3–4 hours.
  7. An hour before baking time, preheat your oven to 350°F (176°C)
  8. When the dough is fully proofed, and the oven is preheated, give the dough an egg wash by whisking together one whole egg and 1 Tbsp water and brushing a thin layer of this mixture over the top of the dough.
  9. Then bake it for 40-45 minutes or until the center of the dough reaches 200°F (93°C).
    At this point, Leo suggests keeping, “an eye on the babka in the last 10 minutes of the bake, if it’s coloring too quickly drop the temperature to compensate.”
  10. He also suggests painting the baked babka with a simple syrup mixture made by heating a quarter cup of sugar and water until it bubbles. Finally, he explains:
    “Using a pastry brush, brush on a thin layer of the simple syrup. The amount you put on is up to you: the more you add the sweeter the crust will become. Let the babka rest for 10 minutes in the pan. Do not let the babka rest for longer than 10 minutes or it’ll be hard to remove from the pan.

Other sourdough chocolate recipes you might bake for the New Year:

Tell us what you used sourdough in your baking for New Year’s in the comment section below.