An Epic Culinary Adventure February 1, 2009
So, I have been wanting to make Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Babka recipe for several years. I tasted the finished product once at Bob & Eliza’s during one of our ethnic dining experiments (it was Polish night and I cheated and bought everything else in Greenpoint, while Bob & Eliza slaved over this treat). But I am sans standing mixer, and was not about to tackle this recipe without one. Enter Bryan’s awesome kitchen. Free at last to bake to my heart’s content!
I started by grating 3 bags of semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Guittard brand, which Cooks Illustrated had recommended in a recent issue). The recipe calls for finely chopped chocolate, and in lieu of a food processor, I thought a parmesan cheese grater was the next best thing. It did a bang up job, even if it did take me about 30 minutes and left me with carpal tunnel wrist pains.
The rest of the recipe was pretty straight forward, if not time consuming. From start to finish it was about 5 or 6 hours, with the grating, dough rising, assembly, and baking times.
The dough, post-rise, was then cut into threes, with each piece rolled into a roughly 16″x16″ square. Then the chocolate filling (the chopped chocolate with butter and cinnamon) was spread out over the dough, and then the whole thing was rolled up, twisted, folded in half, and twisted again. Once in the parchment-lined pan, the struesel topping was added. I only used about 1/5 of the amount the recipe made, because it was a ridiculous amount and I wanted to actually be able to taste the chocolate and bread part, and not just the powdered sugar and butter topping.
The finished product was a beautiful browned and marbled loaf, that smelled and tasted extraordinary.
My audience members thought so too.
