This decadent addition to an already mouthwatering brioche recipe will take your tastebuds to another planet. With its fluffy layers of traditional french brioche, intertwined between smooth layers of perfectly sweetened chocolate and crunchy pistachio, you are bound to be enamored by intensity and satisfaction when you eat a piece.
Winter 2020. Milan, Italy.
I felt like the queen of the world. I had just mastered my brioche recipe after months of trials and errors. It was the fourth or fifth time I had successfully baked a perfect brioche, and, as per my inquisitive nature, I started inquiring of ways I could take my newly acquired enriched dough skills to the next level. First, I thought of that twisty, chocolatey bread thing I had seen on Instagram. I sneaked out to the supermarket around the corner and bought a small jar of Nutella to use as my chocolate filling. As soon as I got back home, I hid it in the back of my pantry because I knew 👨🏼 would devour it all in one spoonful if he ever knew there was Nutella in our house. Obviously, me being me, I forgot about its existence for weeks.
It wasn't until one Saturday morning when 👨🏼 was looking for maple syrup in the kitchen cupboards to slather onto some sourdough pancakes that the hidden Nutella came to my attention once again. I was quietly sitting at the kitchen table, spreading ghee and honey on the pancakes, when I hear a loud shout of excitement that was inevitably coming from 👨🏼's mouth. I turn around to see what the cause of that unusual noise was, and I find 👨🏼 holding the jar of Nutella between his hands, looking at it with sparkly, wide eyes and with a smile from ear to ear– a way in which he has never looked at me, by the way. I immediately jumped off my seat and snatched the Nutella out of his hands. His expression changed instantaneously to a pout and sad puppy eyes, or, how we would say in Spanish, "slaughtered lamb's eyes"– yes, very dramatic but that's how we roll– which might honestly be a more accurate description of his brief sense of dismay.
I explained to him that I had bought it to test out a batch of a chocolate swirled brioche. He became bright-eyed again, and you could begin to see a hint of a smile returning to his face. I then knew I had to act quickly in order to whip up this chocolate bread thing and keep 👨🏼 under control. Within a few hours, I prepared the brioche dough to be baked the next day– along with the not-so-well-hidden Nutella that would later be added to it. The next morning, I woke up early, assembled the whole thing, and popped it into the oven. As I was transporting the babka to the living room for a portrait session, 👨🏼's eyes were following me as if they had been super-glued to my every move, but I later realized it was the babka he was looking at, not me. Shocker.
The final verdict for that first loaf: it was tasty, but there was something off about it, which was later determined to be the Nutella. I continued to do many other tests with various store-bought chocolate spreads, and finally landed on a natural chocolate and hazelnut spread that paired just right with the brioche dough. However, I wanted to take my babka to an even further level of scrumptiousness. To that end, I embarked on another journey to develop the perfect chocolate spread filling, that was intensely rich (and not just in the chocolate sense), with just the right amount of sweetness, and that would seamlessly blend with the delicate classical brioche dough I developed earlier.
One thing 👨🏼 always says is: "we are a team", and, to be honest, I never really understood the meaning of how we were until I started using his input to develop recipes. For example, with this recipe, I was in the kitchen, glued to the stovetop, watching the butter melt in the saucepan, while he was sitting on the kitchen table working on his computer. I kept feeding him different versions of the chocolate spread, "too bitter", or "hmm I don't know", and "I mean its good, but not wow" he would say as he licked his fingers tasting and evaluating all the dimensions of the filling. It wasn't until he finally tried a new formula I came up with and was at a loss of words, almost biting his finger off trying to get every piece of chocolate left on his finger. That's when I knew two things, one, I had landed my babka filling and two, we are a team.
Long story short, you can do your babka with a store bought chocolate filling (again, preferably a less artificial kind so you don't have a weird aftertaste of palm oil), but what makes my recipe stand out its the richness that the filling gives an already luscious brioche bread.
Without further delay, you will find my take on babka below.
Ingredients
For the dough
1 basic brioche recipe
For the chocolate spread
180 g of chocolate (60 - 65% cacao roughly chopped)
125 g of butter
70 g of powdered sugar
40 g of cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
For the syrup
50 g of white sugar
50 g of water
100 g of pistachios roughly chopped
(50 g per loaf)
1 egg beaten for egg wash
This recipe yields two babka loaves
Method
The night before you bake your babka
STEP 0. Make the brioche dough and keep it in your fridge until the next day.
Make the chocolate spread (also the night before)
STEP 1. Add butter to a medium saucepan and start melting at medium low heat. When 3/4 of the butter have melted, add the chocolate, roughly chopped, and turn of the heat. Let sit for 30 seconds and move the saucepan in circular motions to move the chocolate and butter mixture until completely melted. Use a heat proof spatula to swirl around the mixture if you are having trouble getting it all melted.
STEP 2. Add the cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and salt into the saucepan and mix with a whisk until everything has been incorporated. Let cool for five minutes and transfer into a clean jar. Let sit at room temperature overnight until you are ready to start assembling your babka.
You can do the chocolate spread the same day you bake the babka, but I do recommend letting it sit overnight. It will take on a spreadable texture instead of just liquid.
This is the texture it will have if you use it the same day
This is the texture it will have if you let it sit overnight at room temperature. It is less liquid, and creamier.
The day you will bake your babka
Make the simple syrup
STEP 1. In a small saucepan at medium heat add water and sugar. Leave on heat until the sugar dissolves, completely stirring the mixture by moving the saucepan in circular motions. It will take around 10 - 15 minutes. Let the mixture sit in the pan until ready to use, which will be when the babkas come out of the oven.
You are just looking for the sugar to completely dissolve in the water more than you are aiming for a thick syrup. Also, this is not caramel or a caramel sauce, its just a simple syrup.
Assemble the babka
STEP 1. Take your dough out of the fridge and divide it into two equal pieces. I like to weigh my dough to make sure my halves are even. Return one of the halves to the bowl your dough was resting on in the fridge, cover with plastic and transfer it back into the fridge.
STEP 2. Dust a work surface with flour (I use rice flour) and roll out the other half of the dough into a rectangle about 0.7 - 1 cm thick.
STEP 3. Place dollops of chocolate spread across your dough rectangle and gently spread with an offset spatula covering the whole surface of the dough leaving a half centimeter border. You can be as generous or stingy with the amount of chocolate spread, but don't be too dramatic. I add sufficient chocolate to have enough for both babka loaves and to have some leftover to spread on other things.
STEP 4. Sprinkle pistachios across the chocolate covered dough, leaving a bit to sprinkle on top of the loaf once it comes out of the oven.
STEP 5. Tightly but gently roll your dough across the long side of the chocolate and pistachio covered rectangular dough until you have a log. I like to brush off excess flour with a pastry brush as I roll, but you don't have to.
STEP 6. With a metal bench scraper, or with a knife, slice your babka log in the middle lengthwise, and carefully turn each strand to expose the chocolate layers - they should be facing you.
STEP 7. Starting from the middle, take one strand of dough and cross it over the other strand. Take the other strand and and cross it over the strand you just moved. Repeat until you have twisted the entire dough. Pinch the ends and tuck them beneath the dough.
STEP 8. Preheat your oven to 180° C / 350° F. Transfer your babka twist into a greased loaf pan lined with parchment paper. Let it proof for about 30 - 45 minutes. When proofed, brush it with egg wash and transfer into the oven in the bottom rack and bake for a total of 45 minutes. Let it bake for 30 minutes, then cover your loaf with a piece of aluminum foil (to prevent the chocolate from burning) and bake for a further 13 minutes, then uncover for the last 2 minutes of baking.
If you have a thermometer, it can come in handy to check the dough's temperature to determine when it's fully done– you are aiming at 85 - 90° C / 185 - 195° F.
STEP 9. Take your loaf out of the oven and immediately brush it with the simple syrup you left cooling on your stovetop. Be generous, but keep in mind you don't have to use it all. Sprinkle with leftover pistachios.
I like to pour some of the syrup into a clean bowl and use that to brush the top of my babka loaves. This will prevent the rest of the syrup from getting dirty with chocolate and crumbs, allowing you to use it in other recipes and even in cocktails.
STEP 10. Let the babka cool for about 30 minutes. Then, eat! It is best eaten the same day, but you can store it in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
Notes on this Recipe:
DO NOT use Nutella as a replacement for the chocolate spread. When cooked, Nutella has a terrible taste which (I think) is because of the palm oil in it. If you use Nutella, you will ruin all of the hard work you have put into your babka. I did it once and I learned my lesson.
If you refuse to do the chocolate spread because you're lazy (no judgement) you can definitely replace it with a store bought chocolate spread (one that is NOT Nutella). Make sure whichever one you buy does not have palm oil as one of the ingredients - you can find many suitable chocolate spreads at natural food stores that will taste great even when baked. I used this one from Naturasi in Milano. Typically, the oils on healthier or more natural versions of Nutella will separate from the rest of the spread, but don't panic or reject it. Just stir vigorously before using and the problem will be solved.
I am a die-hard fan or dark chocolate starting at 70% cacao. However, for this recipe I decided to go down on the percentage to around 60-65% because I wanted to reduce the amount of powdered sugar in the recipe. So, I would recommend to stay away from the temptation of adding darker chocolate to this recipe. The cocoa powder and powdered sugar are necessary to achieve a spread like consistency that won't harden, like a ganache for example. Therefore, if you use a darker chocolate, your spread will be more bitter (despite what you might think), because of the cocoa powder, and then you will have to add more powdered sugar to compensate. To sum it up, just use my recipe, follow the cacao percentage, and all will be right in the world. (note: as I said before, I always go for darker chocolate, so rest assured that I developed this chocolate spread recipe to be on the not-so-sweet side)
Do not skip on the salt when doing the chocolate spread. It will not make your babka salty at all, in fact the salt is there in a relatively high amount to bring out the chocolate flavor even more. Have you ever watched that Modern Family episode when Manny adds salt to his chocolate milk? Well, it has the same effect– its makes it more delicious.
The syrup in this recipe is a key factor for a successful and delicious babka. You might think it's superfluous, but actually, the syrup is not just there for aesthetic purposes (e.g., shine)– it is one of the main actors in keeping the babka moist. Don't skip it.
For this recipe I've used two different pan sizes and it has worked perfectly fine for both times. You can even bake your babka straight into a baking shit without a pan. I like using a pan because the slices of the baked loaf will come out nice and tall, if you don't use a loaf pan, the rise of your babka will be less controlled and more dramatic in other directions, yielding a beautiful but less tall loaf.
As always, try to work fast. For me, my babka loaves start proofing from the moment I stop rolling out the dough, and thanks to the addition of chocolate (sugar) and the relatively thin layers of dough, it proofs even faster than your regular brioche loaf. If you work fast, you'll be able to benefit from proofing your babka inside the loaf pan. Moral of the story, keep an eye on your loaf, as it will proof quite fast.