My family like French dip, so I came up with this incredibly easy recipe that I can make whenever I want using au jus mix. The roast is cooked in the slow cooker along with the juice, which is the greatest part.
| Prep Time: | 40 mins |
| Cook Time: | 25 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr 40 mins |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 45 mins |
| Servings: | 10 |
| Yield: | 2 loaves |
Ingredients
- ¾ cup milk
- ¼ cup butter
- 2 cups bread flour
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ¼ cup water (Optional)
- 1 large egg
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 5 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ⅓ cup white sugar
- ¼ cup butter, chilled
- ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup butter, chilled
- 1 large egg, beaten (Optional)
- 1 tablespoon water (Optional)
Instructions
- Prepare the dough: Warm milk and melt butter in a glass or ceramic bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds, or in a saucepan on the stovetop. Combine bread flour, all-purpose flour, yeast, and sugar. Add water, milk-butter mixture, egg, and salt to the dry ingredients and mix well.
- Use the dough hook in a stand mixer on low speed or knead the dough by hand until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 15 minutes. If the dough is too wet, add more bread flour, about 2 tablespoons at a time (up to 8 tablespoons) to make a workable dough; too much flour can make the dough dry. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rise until double in size, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
- Make chocolate filling and streusel while the dough is rising.
- For the filling: Stir together finely chopped chocolate, cinnamon, and sugar. Cut in chilled butter with a fork.
- Make the streusel: Combine confectioners’ sugar and all-purpose flour; cut in chilled butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- When the dough has doubled, punch the dough down and cut it into two equal pieces. Loosely shape each piece into a ball. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rest for 10 minutes.
- Roll out one portion of dough on a lightly floured surface to form a 15×4-inch rectangle. Sprinkle with 1/2 of the chocolate filling, roll up to form a long log, and seal the seam. Attach the ends to form a circle and place the ring, seam-side down, on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Repeat with the second piece of dough.
- Use a serrated knife or kitchen shears to cut slits at 1-inch intervals around the rings. Cover the rings with damp kitchen towels and let rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Make the egg wash: Combine egg and water in a small dish and whisk to combine.
- Brush the loaves with egg wash. Sprinkle streusel on top. Bake the loaves, rotating the baking sheets to promote even browning, until the bread is a deep golden brown, about 25 minutes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 378 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 46 g |
| Cholesterol | 75 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Saturated Fat | 12 g |
| Sodium | 295 mg |
| Sugars | 23 g |
| Fat | 20 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Totally fantastic! Tasty, rich, and delicate. Made it two thirds wheat and less than half the sugar. SOOO good!
So yummy! Just as directions but used bread machine for dough!
Made it exactly as written, it was fabulous!
I love chocolate babka but it’s difficult to find outside of a good NY Jewish deli. And grocery store babka is too dry. So decided to make it. Very good recipe. I followed it to the letter the first time and really liked it, but… not enough chocolate and layers were too thick with the 4”wide dough. So the next time doubled the chocolate (kept cinnamon and sugar the same as the recipe) and rolled the dough to 15 x 7ish. Piled on the chocolate mixture, pressing it into the dough a bit. Rolled it up, and voila! Moved from good to awesome. Made 3 batches and gave to my neighbors. This will be a holiday staple.
Turned out to taste great, not the prettiest but I think that was user error
I found this recipe to be just ok. The dough was a little stiff and thick so I had to add extra egg and butter to it. I followed the directions for the amount of flour exactly so I am not sure why it was so stiff. Also we felt like it definitely needed more filling. If I make it again I would double the filling. I have seen other recipes with nicer fillings so I might try one of those in the future. Overall the babka was moist and tasty. But could have been much better with more filling.
Amazing! Did not change a thing and it came out perfect!
This recipe is very good, Just needs way more CHOCOLATE!
I wish it had come out like a braided bread, but i will definitely make it again.
I doubled it and used the bread machine to make the dough. Delicious!!
I’ve made this a bunch of times and it comes out amazingly every time!!
Delicious! Mixed dough in bread machine then filled formed and baked. Added toasted pecans & coconut to chocolate filling. Absolutely fantastic!!
I added 1/4 C sour cream to pastry and increased flour by 1/4 C. It turned out fantastically.
This was wonderful and easy to make. I made extra filling (used Vietnamese cinnamon, and mini chocolate chips instead of chopping) to make sure there was plenty…I used it all. Instead of the 1 egg I used 3 egg yolks. I used scissors to cut the tops after the 2nd rise, that way the filling remained in the ring. The bread wasn’t dry at all.
Ive made this for thanksgiving for the past three years because my step dad is polish. the whole family loves it and ask for it every year. I started making it at age 14 so it’s not to hard. time consuming but fun
There’s no recipe lol! Would love to see it 🙂
Do it! Don’t hesitate! For something so impressive, it’s really not that much work, no fancy ingredients required. The sweet bread is wonderful, not too sweet, and biting into the chocolate filling is a transformative experience 🙂 I did add a little more chocolate, which was fine; but I think doubling it, as someone suggested, would really overwhelm the bread.
I used chocolate chips instead of chopping up the chocolate, which worked great. I put the streusel on one and topped the other with cinnamon and sugar. My husband and I preferred the one without the streusel. Next time I would make it with a little bit of sugar sprinkled on top, no cinnamon. Also be sure to roll the dough very thin, because that makes for a thicker middle and you can taste the chocolate more. This was a keeper, although I’ll save it for special occasions because of the fat!
I have made this several times it’s a family favorite. Thanks for the recipe.
Really liked the recipe and instructions. The only recommendation that I can make is to double the chocolate filling. I had chocolate babka in New York, and there was much more chocolate in it. Next time, I will roll the dough to 15×8 and double the chocolate filling for each. I think that I will also sprinkle it with course sugar after the egg wash and before I add the delicious streusel topping for an extra touch of sparkle and crunch for the top. YUM! I am saving this recipe, just modifying it a bit to make it perfect for me.
I made this recipe it is delicious, i highly recommend proofing for as much if not longer a time period than is suggested, i though I could proof for a little less time and mine came out a bit dense. But Still DELICIOUS!