Chocolate Cinnamon Babka

In January, Eve, Cheryl, Jess, & I met at Central Market to take a class from the legendary Peter Reinhart. The class was based on his most recent book, Artisan Breads Every Day.

Jess is on Spring Break this week and we were long overdue for a cooking project. She suggested babka, our favorite of the recipes that were demonstrated in class. We each made a batch of the dough last night.

Unfortunately, I fell awake at one-thirty-something in the morning and my second thought was "Oh no! I forgot the dough!" I was supposed to refrigerate it after its first rise. The recipe had an alarming amount of yeast -- two TABLESPOONS! -- and I had visions of exploding dough all over my kitchen. I leapt up and ran to check. All was well. I threw it in the fridge and went back to bed for what restless dream-filled sleep I could get.

Together this morning, Jess and I made double batches of the chocolate cinnamon filling and the streusel topping. Then we took turns rolling out the dough, sprinkling it with filling and rolling it up like a log. Each log was then split down the middle and criss-crossed, making two braided loaves.





During their second rise, Jess & I went on a grocery shopping excursion. When we got back, we put the bread in the oven to bake while we ate a virtuous but delicious lunch. We were rewarded with incredibly rich, flaky, buttery, chocolate-y, cinnamon-y goodness.