We made a chocolate and citrus babka
This chocolate and ClemenGold® babka falls under the ‘slightly more ambitious’ category of baking projects, but trust us when we say it is 100% worth it.
Ingredients:
For the dough:
- ½ cup full cream milk, plus 2 T
- Butter 140 g, room temperature
- Flour 250 g
- Salt, generous pinch
- Castor sugar 40 g
- Sachet yeast, 1 x 10 g pack
- 2 free range eggs, lightly beaten
- Zest of 2 ClemenGolds®
For the filling:
- Butter 60 g
- Castor sugar 80 g
- Woolworths Chocolate Pretzel Bites or dark chocolate 100 g
- 2 T cocoa powder
For assembling:
- Roasted and salted almonds, 100 g chopped
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180° C. Warm the milk and 40 g of the butter together until the butter has melted, be sure not to boil.
- In a mixer, combine the dry ingredients for the dough. Turn on the machine and slowly add the warm milk and butter mixture, and then add the beaten egg a little at a time.
- When the mixture comes together to make a dough, knead with a dough hook until smooth for about 15 minutes, then add the remaining butter a tablespoon at a time until incorporated, and mix for a further 5 minutes. The mixture will still be slightly wet. Cover with cling wrap and leave for an hour or more if the weather is cold, until doubled in size.
- For the filling: combine the butter and sugar in a saucepan until melted, add remaining ingredients and melt into a sauce, it might not dissolve completely but no need to worry. Keep aside.
- Roll out the dough into a large rectangle, spread the filling over the dough and sprinkle with 80 g chopped nuts. Roll up the longer side like a Swiss roll. 4cm from the top of the roll, cut the roll in half lengthways then twist the two halves together to intertwine. Arrange in a zig zag shape in a greased 25cm x 13cm loaf tin. Wrap with cling wrap and leave to rest for 45 minutes.
- Remove cling wrap, brush with egg wash, stud with extra chocolate if you like and sprinkle over remaining chopped nuts. Bake for 1 hour, covering loosely with foil after 30 minutes to keep the top from burning. Cool in the tin before turning out and serving.
Makes: 1 loaf
Preparation time: 1 hour 30 minutes, plus resting time
Cooking time: 1 hour 10 minutes