Chocolate & Cinnamon Babka ~ The Famous Babka In New York

Babka is such a familiar name to me. I've first learnt about Babka is from Mary from One Perfect Bite, a dear blogger buddy, since a couple years back. But have never thought of trying it even once though. haha.... Weird huh ! And then by early of this year, I was again seduced by the introduction made by Kak Dewi from Elra's Baking on my facebook. She drove me all the way to the most famous & beautiful babka in New York ! And I was stuck there since then. haha.... After a long consideration, I finally decided to make one most famous chocolate babka at home and found some really good info from here & here. And here I go.

Ingredients for bread dough : (2 loaves)
(A)
1 cup  warmed milk
1 TB  yeast
1 TB  sugar
1 cup flour
(mix well and leave to rest for 20 minutes)

(B)
3-3/4 cup bread flour
3 large eggs
120gm  butter, chopped
2 tspn  vanilla paste
1 tspn  salt

Method :  once the ingredients (A) is ready, stir ingredients (B) into (A) to form a soft dough and knead till smooth. Then keep dough into a well sealed plastic bag and keep refrigerated overnight.

Ingredients for chocolate fillings : Please refer here. (double the recipe for 2 loaves)
Or you might as well try out my green tea flavour fillings.

Ingredients for cinnamon sugar spread :
1 cup  brown sugar mixed with 1 TB  cinnamon powder

Ingredients for streusel topping :
60gm  butter, softened
2 TB  brown sugar
2 TB  sugar
1/2 tspn  cinnamon powder
3/4 cup  all purpose flour
(cream butter & sugar till smooth then add in cinnamon & flour to form crumble paste. Keep refrigerated before used)

TO ASSEMBLE :
(1) divide dough into 2 portions, roll each into 12x12" and place chocolate paste into the middle. Wrap it like an envelope and nicely sealed. Unlike the usual process, I'm using the pastry folding method on this.
(2) now, roll wrapped dough into rectangle shape as thin as you could. Then sprinkle on the cinnamon & brown sugar.
(3) next, roll dough like swiss roll from the longer side and then simply twist the rolled dough as much as you could with both hands.
(4) finally, place dough to 4x4x9" tray with parchment papers and let to rest for an hour.
(5) brush on egg glaze or milk then spread on streusel topping and let to bake at preheated oven at 165'C for about 60 minutes or till brown.
(6) once its done, cooled completely before slicing.

Babka is a traditional Jewish bakery specially made during Easter celebration. And also well known as sweet yeasted cake which meaning more eggs & butter are involved in the recipe. Something similar to brioche. And some say Babka is a classic Czech coffee cake as well. Well, whateverso its a scrumptious treat for everyone. My babka turned out looking great. I am a happy happy baker ! :o)

The outcome of this bread like cake is totally out of my expectation and I'm dancing to celebrate this gorgeous cake. Aaaa.... finally, one of the famous babka is in my kitchen right at this moment. What not to be happy about !