These Best Chocolate Babka Buns are amazing with their rich brioche dough and chocolatey nutty filling. They are big gorgeous beautiful buns that are best eaten still warm on the day they are baked.
Want more great bread recipes to make? Try this gorgeous White Braided Bread, Sourdough Dinner Rolls, or Homemade Brioche Bread. All are perfect for Easter or any time.
This is the best and only chocolate babka recipe that you will need. Is babka Jewish? Yes, it originated in the Jewish communities of Poland and Ukraine, and it has then spilled over into Easter bread too.
A traditional Easter Ukrainian bread is more cylindrical in shape and does not contain chocolate, but I think everyone will want to make this gorgeous babka bread we have today.
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What is Chocolate Babka?
Babka is a sweet, buttery yeast bread. Most of the time, babka is a chocolate bread like you see here, but sometimes it has cinnamon running throughout the layers. The layers or swirls of chocolate or cinnamon pull apart into lovely sweet twists of sweetness.
What is Chocolate Babka Made of?
Very simple ingredients for this sweet bread that you can find in any grocery store.
Ingredients
For the dough
3 cups plain flour
1 packet of instant yeast
1.5 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup milk, warmed
5 large eggs
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature and cut into small squares of about a tablespoon each.
Egg Wash
1 egg, beaten
Filling
1/2 cup hazelnuts
2 cups Nutella (or any chocolate spread)
Glaze
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
How to Make Chocolate Babka Buns
This recipe takes the loaf pan out of the equation of the traditional babka as the bread is worked into gorgeous buns. Also, instead of using chocolate chips or cocoa powder, this recipe uses the convenience of a chocolate spread.
Making The Dough
Fit a stand mixer with the dough hook.
Put the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar into a large stand mixer bowl. Use a handheld whisk to combine the mixture, then make a well in the center.
Warm the milk in the microwave for about 30 seconds. It should be warm but not hot. Break the eggs into a jug or small glass bowl, lightly beat, then add the warm milk and briefly beat again.
Pour the milk and egg mixture into the well you made in the flour mixture.
Mix on a slow speed for 2 minutes, then increase the speed to medium for 7 minutes.
Keeping the speed at medium, add the butter one piece at a time, allowing the butter to become fully combined with the dough before adding the next piece.
When all the butter has been added, you will have a very light, smooth, and elastic dough.
Grease a large clean bowl with a little olive oil and transfer the dough into it. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours but preferably overnight.
Making the Chocolate Filling
To make the filling, add the hazelnuts to an ovenproof dish and roast at 350ºF for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, add 2 cups of Nutella to a small mixing bowl.
Remove the hazelnuts from the oven and use a sharp knife to roughly chop them, then add them to the bowl of Nutella and mix thoroughly together.
Generously flour the work surface and your hands. Take the dough out of the refrigerator, turn it out onto the work surface, then cut it into 8 sections.
Use your hands to roll each section into a ball, then use a floured rolling pin to roll the ball into a rectangle of about 25x12cm (it doesn’t have to be a perfect rectangle).
Creating the Buns
Spread a heaped tablespoon of Nutella chocolate filling onto the rolled-out dough, taking care not to spread the chocolate all the way to the edges.
With the longest edge facing you, roll up the dough into a sausage shape. Seal the free edge together with your fingers.
Use a sharp knife to cut the dough lengthways but leave one attached by a gap of a couple of cms.
Twist the two strands of dough together, then bring the ends in to make a circular shape. Tuck each free end of dough underneath the loop as if you’re tying a knot.
Finishing off the Babka Buns
Transfer the twisted buns to two baking trays lined with baking parchment. Leave to rise somewhere warm for 40 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. When the buns have doubled in size, brush them with the beaten egg, then bake them in the center of the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Meanwhile, make the glaze by adding the sugar and water to a small saucepan set over medium heat. Boil for 2 minutes, then brush the syrup over the buns as soon as they come out of the oven.
Leave to cool for ten minutes before eating. Best if they are eaten warm, so you don’t need to cool completely.
Recipe Notes
• It is much easier to spread the process of making babka out over the course of 2 days. Make the dough on the first day, then leave it to slowly rise in the refrigerator overnight. This makes the dough easier to handle, and a cold rise will greatly improve the flavor.
• The milk should be warm but not too hot otherwise it will kill the yeast. Test it by putting your finger into the milk after it’s been heated to make sure it’s not too hot.
• It will take a fairly long time to add all the butter piece by piece, but this is the best technique to get a truly enriched dough with a good texture.
• After the butter has been added, the dough will be very smooth and elastic. If you touch it with a dry finger, no dough will stick, but it should feel slightly tacky. Don’t be tempted to add extra flour.
More Tips
• When it’s time to divide the dough, you can weigh it in its entirety, then divide the weight by 8, or just eyeball it!
• Don’t be afraid to use plenty of flour when handling the dough at the shaping stage; it will not make any difference to the final texture.
• For the second rise, the buns will double in size, so it’s best to keep 4 to a baking tray leaving some space in-between them. They will also get bigger during baking.
• The Babka Buns are pretty huge, so you can make up to 12 if you prefer them to be smaller. However, bear in mind that twisting them together will be more difficult since you’ll have less dough to work with.
• As with all freshly baked goods, these Babka Buns are best eaten warm on the day they are baked. They will keep for a couple of days but expect them to go stale after 24 hours.
Pin it HERE!!
Pin it HERE!!
Best Chocolate Babka Buns
Ingredients
For the dough
- 3 cups plain flour
- 1 packet instant yeast
- 1.5 teaspoons salt
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 cup milk warmed
- 5 eggs
- 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature and cut into small squares of about a tablespoon each.
Egg Wash
- 1 egg beaten
Filling
- 1/2 cup hazelnuts
- 2 cups Nutella or any chocolate spread
Glaze
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup water
Instructions
- Fit a stand mixer with the dough hook.
- Put the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar into a large stand mixer bowl. Use a handheld whisk to combine the mixture, then make a well in the center.
- Warm the milk in the microwave for about 30 seconds. It should be warm but not hot. Break the eggs into a jug or small glass bowl, lightly beat, then add the warm milk and briefly beat again.
- Pour the milk and egg mixture into the well you made in the flour mixture.
- Mix on a slow speed for 2 minutes, then increase the speed to medium for 7 minutes.
- Keeping the speed at medium, add the butter one piece at a time, allowing the butter to become fully combined with the dough before adding the next piece.
- When all the butter has been added, you will have a very light, smooth, and elastic dough.
- Grease a large clean bowl with a little olive oil and transfer the dough into it. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours but preferably overnight.
- To make the filling, add the hazelnuts to an ovenproof dish and roast at 350ºF for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, add 2 cups of Nutella to a small mixing bowl.
- Remove the hazelnuts from the oven and use a sharp knife to roughly chop them, then add them to the bowl of Nutella and mix thoroughly together.
- Generously flour the work surface and your hands. Take the dough out of the refrigerator, turn it out onto the work surface, then cut it into 8 sections.
- Use your hands to roll each section into a ball, then use a floured rolling pin to roll the ball into a rectangle of about 25x12cm (it doesn’t have to be a perfect rectangle).
- Spread a heaped tablespoon of Nutella chocolate filling onto the rolled-out dough, taking care not to spread the chocolate all the way to the edges.
- With the longest edge facing you, roll up the dough into a sausage shape. Seal the free edge together with your fingers.
- Use a sharp knife to cut the dough lengthways but leave one attached by a gap of a couple of cms.
- Twist the two strands of dough together, then bring the ends in to make a circular shape. Tuck each free end of dough underneath the loop as if you’re tying a knot.
- Transfer the twisted buns to two baking trays lined with baking parchment. Leave to rise somewhere warm for 40 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. When the buns have doubled in size, brush them with the beaten egg, then bake them in the center of the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
- Meanwhile, make the glaze by adding the sugar and water to a small saucepan set over medium heat. Boil for 2 minutes, then brush the syrup over the buns as soon as they come out of the oven.
- Leave to cool for ten minutes before eating. Best if they are eaten warm, so you don’t need to cool completely.
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