Best Chocolate Babka Bake Off

Searching for the best chocolate babka recipe? I baked 9 different recipes in one day and asked 45 tasters to rate them in search of the fluffiest and delicious chocolate babka!

As a lifelong chocolate lover, finding the best chocolate babka recipe felt like a natural mission.

The first babka I ever had was probably from Breads Bakery while on a trip to NYC. The glossy, sticky top and stripes of chocolate were so unique and alluring! While the texture wasn’t as squishy as I expected, the structured, airy bread almost melted in the mouth with a delightful crunch around the edges. To date, I’ve only tried a few other chocolate babkas in the city (Oneg and Michaeli among others), so the quest to find the best babka recipe to make at home was both an an exciting and intimidating task. Let’s dive in!

Methodology

• I baked 9 chocolate babkas in one day (most recipes made two loaves, so I made a full recipe of each recipe except for Tori Avey and Nicola Lamb, which I doubled to get 2 loaves)
• 45 total tasters rated samples of all 9 babkas
• Each taster rated each babka on a scale from 0-10 for flavor, texture and overall as a whole (see Results section below)
• All recipes were baked the same day of tasting for freshness in disposable 9×5 aluminum loaf tins
• Ingredients were measured by weight according to King Arthur (unless the recipe specified weights)

Ingredients

• Gold Medal bleached all-purpose flour
• King Arthur bread flour
• Hershey’s cocoa powder
• Guittard Dutch-process cocoa powder
• Guittard semisweet chocolate
• Lily’s milk chocolate chips
• Trader Joe’s pound plus dark chocolate bar
• Nutella
• Kirkland unsalted butter
• Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt

What is babka?

At it’s core, babka is a sweet, yeasted, braided bread imbued with ribbons of filling–in this case, chocolate. Buttermilk by Sam notes that there are two basic ways to make babka: “the more commonly associated brioche dough (most recipes you find use this, similar to Bread’s Bakery babka) versus challah, a softer bread that uses oil, not butter, as a fat. The latter is probably how babka originated, with home bakers spreading jam or cinnamon over leftover challah.”

I went down a rabbit hole trying to understand if there were any differences in brioche and challah besides the use of oil instead of butter. While both challah and brioche are enriched breads with eggs and sugar, Tasting Tables cites the main difference as the fact that challah is dairy-free. Meanwhile, brioche is often enriched with a higher ratio of butter along with milk.

Results: The Crowd Favorite

After tasting samples of all 9 babkas, here are the results from 45 different tasters.

One thing that’s clear about this tasting group is that they love chocolate! Our crowd favorite loaf, Nicola Lamb, is technically made with a brioche dough, but it’s a bit hard to tell because of its abundant amount of chocolate. If you’re curious about the overall performance of brioche vs. challah-based loaves, I go into more detail in the next section. Personally, my favorites leaned more towards the squishy-soft challah loaves.

I would have guessed that the loaves with streusel would have garnered higher ratings. However, both King Arthur and Tori Avey landed closer to the bottom (probably due to the actual bread recipe).

While it’s easy to default to making the crowd favorite, rest assured these were all delicious and I think it’s worth trying any of the recipes whose description speaks to you. Full descriptions and links to each recipe is under the analysis section below.

As always, please take these results with a grain of salt as these scores reflect my own personal baking abilities and very specific group of tasters! I truly think most people would be delighted to eat any of these babkas served as a standalone option.

Factors in the best chocolate babka recipes

Challah vs. brioche: which is better?

I was curious how the brioche vs. challah-based babkas would fare in this bake off. If we abide by the above definition, our three challah (oil-based/dairy-free) recipes were Alexandra Cooks, Breads Bakery and Buttermilk by Sam.

However, because there’s so much chocolate intermingled in the dough, it was hard to get a purely dough-based comparison–i.e. much of each recipe’s score was also based on its filling. From the taster scores, you can see that Breads took second place while Alexandra Cooks and Buttermilk by Sam landed more in the middle of the pack.

If we’re looking at just the dough, I suspect that the latter oil-based recipes may have performed slightly lower due to their lower ratio of fat rather than the type of fat used. (More on fat ratios in the next section.)

I’ve always struggled with how to describe the texture of brioche, but I think Nicola Lamb captures it so well: “By cutting the butter, we get a slightly less rich and ‘dry’ brioche. The unique close texture of brioche is all thanks to the solid fat emulsified throughout the dough. As it melts in the oven, it creates little air pockets around the gluten structure, giving it the rich, fine crumb. As it cools down, the remaining fat solidifies giving the bread its stretchy and springy quality with a melt in your mouth quality to it.”

This is EXACTLY how I’d describe the babka if you buy it from Breads Bakery, and it also nails the description of Melissa Weller and to some extent, Shannon Sarna. I enjoy this texture, but I’m quite partial to the soft, doughy, close crumb of a fluffy challah bread. This texture better describes recipes like Smitten Kitchen*, Alexandra Cooks and Buttermilk by Sam.

In the end, it all depends on your mood and preference!

*I was curious why Smitten Kitchen’s recipe fell under a texture I’d describe as challah-like even with a relatively high ratio of butter. After inspecting the recipe ratios, I think it’s the relatively higher ratio of egg (14%) that lends a more bready texture compared to the 6/7% of egg in Melissa Weller/Breads.

What’s more important: a rich dough or chocolate-y fillling?

Looking again at the challah recipes, Breads and Buttermilk by Sam both had a lower than average amount of fat with just 4% and 5% oil, respectively (though I suspect Breads was saved in the taster ratings by its generous amount of chocolate filling). While Alexandra Cooks contained more fat (10% oil), this ratio was still relatively low compared to the more common ~14-15% fat. My conclusion: the leaner oil-based doughs generally performed less well EXCEPT for Breads. (Though again remember we are nitpicking here–as standalone loaves, these leaner oil-based babkas are still incredibly delicious!)

My ultimate takeaway: a richer dough made with milk and a higher proportion of fat will generally be more crowd pleasing. However, a less enriched dough can be overcome by a plentiful and flavorful chocolate filling (Breads).

The ideal babka swirl

Most babka recipes follow a similar assembling technique. You roll out the dough into a large rectangle, spread on the filling, and roll it up into a log. From there, the most common process was to slice the log in half lengthwise and twist the halves around each other, though you can also leave the log whole and simply twist it into the pan.

By far the most unique technique came from Nicola Lamb, who called for rolling out the dough into an extra large and thin rectangle before being rolled up. This technique (along with the dough/filling quantities) led to a heavily swirled babka with what felt like an almost 1:1 chocolate to dough ratio. For most tasters, this was their ideal babka swirl and chocolate distribution.

All in all, your ideal form factor really depends on your preference. Prefer more wide swathes of pillowy bread with occasional ribbons of chocolate? Roll your dough into a smaller, thicker rectangle for less twists. If you prefer LOTS of chocolate ribbons, roll out your dough wider and thinner to allow for maximum rolls.

Does a tangzhong make a difference?

Buttermilk by Sam was the only recipe to use the tangzhong method (gelatinizing flour + water/milk together before adding it to the dough). This method is meant to add extra hydration, keeping the dough soft and tender for days on end.

In comparison to the similar Smitten Kitchen recipe which used a regular dough method, I actually found Sam’s crumb to be ever-so-slightly drier. My theory is that Smitten Kitchen’s higher ratio of fat (14% to Sam’s 5%) accounts for the slightly more moist and plush crumb.

Ultimately, this is actually a great endorsement for the tangzhong method. Using it can help create a plush and tender crumb even in the face of less fat. I’d be curious to try Smitten Kitchen’s recipe with Sam’s tangzhong, or try slightly increasing the amount of fat in Sam’s recipe to see if the texture gets even more plush.

Types of chocolate filling

The most common filling formula was a mix of melted chocolate and butter, cocoa and sugar that gets spread onto the dough (Alexandra Cooks, Buttermilk by Sam, Smitten Kitchen, Nicola Lamb, Shannon Sarna, Melissa Weller (which uses honey instead of sugar)). This is a solid formula for a reason–it yields a lovely swirl and great chocolatey flavor. However, things can go wrong if the filling is too loose (see more on the discussion around Shannon Sarna’s recipe below), and things can be enhanced with the addition of a crumb (see below).

Only four recipes (Breads, Nicola Lamb, King Arthur, Tori Avey) used discrete bits of chocolate in the filling (rather than melting it all together). Tori had the most unique filling with just chocolate, butter and cinnamon worked together like a crumb. This was personally my least favorite style of filling because the chocolate ended up being more lumpy than creamy. However, combined with a creamy chocolate spread of some sort, chocolate chips add delightful texture and hits of pure, rich chocolate.

For maximum fudginess, add crumbs to the filling

In her post, Nicola Lamb notes that adding crumbs to her filling increases the level of fudginess as the crumbs absorb the filling as the babka bakes. Nicola and Melissa Weller were the only ones to include crumbs in their filling, and coincidentally or not, I thought they had some of the best-tasting fillings.

Melissa’s filling didn’t actually strike me as very thick or fudgy, but the cookie crumbs did add a lovely textural contrast to the stripes of filling and top of the loaf. I far preferred Nicola’s method of mixing together a raw crumb that gets sprinkled onto the dough. Melissa’s recipe calls for crumbs from chocolate shortbread that’s already been baked, which feels like a drier starting point. (This would be a great shortcut if you can find storebought chocolate shortbread though–I unfortunately could not, and baked the shortbread myself just for this step.)

Streusel adds extra credit crunch and flavor

Only two recipes (Tori Avey, King Arthur) called for a streusel on top of the babka. I adored the flavor of the brown sugar streusel that adorned Tori’s loaf, but felt more neutral about the cinnamon streusel on King Arthur’s loaf. In either case, it adds amazing texture and crunch if that interests you.

Interestingly, there was so much texture in the Melissa Weller/Nicola Lamb fillings from the crumb that it almost looks like they have a streusel as well. So if you’re too lazy to make a streusel, having a crumb-filled filling is a nice addition!

Cinnamon can be divisive

Just a note that a couple recipes (Tori Avey, King Arthur) were definitely marked down by some tasters due to the combination of cinnamon and chocolate. Like adding alcohol to tiramisu, this combination proved divisive among tasters. This is obviously an easy fix to simply remove the cinnamon if you don’t prefer it, but still like the sound of the rest of the recipe.

Interestingly, Nicola Lamb’s babka called for a cinnamon syrup and there were no complaints of excessive cinnamon flavor for her recipe. It’s a great technique if you want to add extra flavor complexity!

Avoid disposable baking tins

I chose to bake the babkas in disposable aluminum tins since I was baking 2 of each loaf and couldn’t fathom how to get my hands on 18 loaf tins for bake day. However, I did have to bake nearly every recipe for at least 5-10 minutes longer than the stated time to get the middle to consistently read 190 F. I’m fairly positive this was due to the poor distribution of heat from the tins, so please learn from my mistake!

Analysis of all 9 babka recipes

Tori Avey: a hugely fluffy but slightly dry babka with a chalkier chocolate swirl

Tori’s loaf was one of the most unique recipes for a few reasons. This is the only babka that called for egg yolks only (and a whopping 4 of them!) and one of two recipes that called for a streusel. No other recipe called for creaming the butter and sugar together (like you would a cake) before adding the oil, eggs, yeast and flour. This also had a unique shaping method: you roll up the filling into a long log, which gets twisted into a figure 8, no cutting involved.

Also notable: the filling calls for finely chopped chocolate, cold butter and cinnamon that gets squished together. The gritty, greasy filling gets dotted onto the dough rather than spread on like most other fillings.

The recipe yields an enormous loaf–one that was nearly twice the size of some others (like Breads or Melissa Weller). Accordingly, it was hard to bake this perfectly because the outside edges reached a 190 internal temp more quickly than the very center. There are a few reasons why I think this babka was rated on the lower end, and part of it could be baker’s error from this issue.

Tori specifically includes directions poke holes in the unbaked babka with a skewer to release steam to prevent gaps between the dough and the filling. However, you can see that I was still left with some gaps which could have been a result of me using a toothpick that wasn’t long enough to reach the bottom of the babka.

In the end, the texture of the bread felt a bit dry–almost like a packaged babka or pannettone even though it was fresh out of the oven. Although the yolks lent a golden hue to the bread, it was a bit blander than the color would suggest. A number of tasters also didn’t enjoy the combination of cinnamon and chocolate in the filling which contributed to lower marks. The chocolate filling was also chunky and inconsistently swirled throughout the dough with a bit of a chalky texture that I didn’t love. However, I LOVED the brown sugar streusel on top. I’d happily add this streusel to any future babka I bake.

Similar to: Food52

Taster comments:

• The cinnamon was a nice touch, the crunchy topping gave some nice texture
• Very panettone or raisin bread-like in the smell, and texture. Because chocolate is spread apart, you often get bites without any chocolate.
• The taste was nice–appreciate the cinnamon in this one because it adds a little something extra. Didn’t love the texture. Chewy and a bit dry.
• Another sample that errs on the side of airy and dry, but the flavor of the bread itself doesn’t come through much, possibly because the piece I got might have been a bit heavy on the chocolate. When it comes to a lighter bread, I tend to want flaky, but I find that most babka doesn’t have a lot of flakiness/crispness because I’m pretty sure that’s not traditional. This one was slightly crumbly, but that may still be because of the piece I got.
• Very dry and flaky not in a fun fresh way
• I thought this was the most bland and could have used some more sweetness.
• Overpowering cinnamon flavor, not enough chocolate; texture feels a bit more like a cinnamon bread than a dense babka.

Shannon Sarna: a soft yet grainy babka with a crystallized top and light chocolate flavor

Shannon Sarna’s recipe won The Kitchn’s babka bake off, so I had high hopes for this recipe. Shannon call this “more elastic, smoother and shinier than challah” with a mixture of milk and water, melted butter and whole eggs. The chocolate filling is a liquidy chocolate mixture made with creamed butter, sugar, Dutch-process cocoa, melted dark chocolate, cinnamon and salt. The most unique part of this recipe: you brush on 5 generous layers of the sugar syrup–2 layers halfway through baking, and then 3 layers once it’s done baking.

This was actually one of the recipes I made a few months ago to practice for this bake off, and my results were similar both times. I ended up with a babka that had more swirls of chocolate filling, but looked a bit flatter and less fluffy than The Kitchn’s take. Both times, I was struck by the caramelization of the vanilla-forward syrup on the top of the loaf–it tastes like a crunchy glaze! But I also felt that the sweet flavor kind of overwhelmed the loaf to the point where I didn’t get an intense chocolate flavor so much as sugar.

Texturally, this had a uniquely soft yet grainy texture. The crumb is rich and fine with a coarseness that’s softened by the syrup. Rather than the close, fluffy bready crumb of Smitten Kitchen, for example, this had a more open crumb but still dense/moist-feeling texture. This felt strangely sweet yet bland both times I made it, and I just realized this might be because the recipe doesn’t call for any salt.

I also chose to make 2 larger babkas rather than 3 smaller babkas (which felt perfectly comparable in size to most other recipes. I think splitting the dough into 3 would be quite small) and found the filling to make an overwhelming amount. If you try this recipe with 2 loaves, I’d reduce the filling by a third. The loose filling was the most difficult to spread and led to one of the messiest processes. On the plus side, this had one of the shortest rising times. Just 1-2 hours for the first rise and 30 minutes for the second rise–easy to make in an afternoon!

Overall, I liked the sugary crunch from the glaze but found the flavor a bit bland and prefer a fluffier, bready babka texture. Still, a solid option for a quick-to-make recipe! (And I’d try adding 3/4-1 tsp of kosher salt if you try it.)

Chocolate filling via The Kitchn.

Taster comments:

• I loved the flaky start and dense finish
• Really sweet and airy bread that’s surprisingly not dry. It was light on the chocolate though, which is probably why the bread flavor was so prominent. Kind of marzipan-y
• Just challah w chocolate- would be a tasty challah though! Kind of a short texture to the dough.
• I like the texture, not too chewy, not too dry. Not a lot of flavor though
• Somewhat of an alcohol taste in the chocolate, not sure why but there was a bitterness in the flavor. bread itself is quite dry.
• Almost grainy chocolate filling, which I actually like. Good chocolate flavor too. Pastry is a bit dry.
• Dry and flaky. Not a fan at all

King Arthur: a fluffy, streusel-topped babka with a yeasty flavor

To be completely transparent, I was planning on testing Marcy Goldman’s recipe but couldn’t find a reliable recipe source online. King Arthur’s recipe has very similar ratios and the same special ingredient (dry milk powder), so I decided to test it instead. King Arthur is one of the rare recipes that doesn’t offer an overnight rest, but it does call for some of the longer rising times. The first rise is 1.5-2 hours; the second is 1.5-2.5 hours (I tended towards the shorter side of these rising times since my kitchen was quite warm). NOTE: I omitted the nuts from the recipe to keep it consistent with others.

Like Tori Avey, these loaves were enormous and I ended up baking them beyond the suggested hour of bake time in order to get the centers to 190 F. Did I still end up with slightly doughy centers and well-done ends? Yes. Could we still discern the flavor and intended texture? I think so! The dough had a pretty plain, yeasty flavor that welcomed the chocolate-forward filling with melted chocolate, cocoa and espresso powder. I was a fan of the texture of the streusel on top, but preferred the brown sugar flavor of Tori’s streusel over the cinnamon sugar streusel here.

Overall, this reminded me of a slightly more moist version of Tori Avey’s loaf. In general, I prefer babka with a crumb that’s a bit sweeter and squishier.

Similar to: Melissa Bourbon, Marcy Goldman

Taster comments:

• Fabulous flavor, nice crystallized cinnamon sugar notes, perfect texture. Need the recipe!
• So delicious! Layers of chocolate were almost hardened which led to a nice contrast in texture from the rest of the babka. Nice crust on top. Might be my favorite!
• Love the crumb topping, more filling than pastry/bread which I prefer. Good saltiness too.
• I like the texture, good crumb. Good flavor mix between chocolate and cinnamon. My 2nd favorite of the bunch.
• Pretty dry, flavor was good, but I wanted a bit more chocolate
• A little dry for me.

Alexandra Cooks: a soft and squishy loaf with a slight tang and delicate chocolate swirls

Ali’s recipe was one of three recipes that suggests oil in the dough rather than butter (though you can also use butter). The ingredient list is simple with a dairy-free dough sweetened with honey (or sugar), vanilla and orange zest (though I omitted the latter as I suspected it would be divisive to the tasters). I used the overnight rest plus a 1-1.5 hour rise the next day. Perhaps the trickiest part is remembering to set aside 45 minutes for the initial fermentation process with a slurry of flour, water and yeast.

Along with Shannon Sarna, this was another recipe I tested months ago to get a feel for baking babka. Both times, I was struck by the slightly sour, complex flavor of the dough (like sourdough vs. white bread), which I really enjoyed. One taster said this reminded them of a Hawaiian roll, which I agree with–I loved the soft, fluffy, slightly squishy texture that felt similar to Smitten Kitchen but with a slightly squishier, airier crumb. Perhaps there wasn’t enough chocolate to be a crowd favorite but I was surprised this didn’t perform more highly. This was one of my favorites!

Taster comments:

• Soft and flavorful! Also very chocolatey and I like how dense it is
• Remind me of a Hawaiian roll with chocolate. Not too sweet and well balanced.
• Very bread-like texture, slightly sweeter chocolate flavor (not as dark?)
• The chocolate and bread taste sweeter than the others. Texture was bouncy.
• This one had almost a sour note to it, and the texture was a bit soft and squishy.
• The fluffiness was nice but I prefer a less fluffy babka.
• I wish this had a bit more chocolate in it, but texture is good

Buttermilk by Sam: a tangzhong-enriched milk bread babka with a fluffy texture and not-too-sweet flavor

Like Alexandra Cooks, Sam is another oil-based recipe. The ratios between the two recipes are somewhat similar (Sam has more sugar but less oil and water), but the key difference is a tangzhong mixture in Sam’s recipe. Tangzhong is the technique of cooking milk or water and flour together until it becomes gelatinous, helping the flour retain more liquid than would normally be possible. Adding this mixture to bread helps keep the bread moist, hydrated and springy for longer. (Note: This technically isn’t a dairy-free challah if you use milk in the tangzhong, which I did.)

Sam’s filling is also similar to Alexandra Cooks with semisweet chocolate, Dutch-process cocoa, butter and powdered sugar. I used the overnight rise option and appreciated that you only need to let it rise for 45-60 minutes for the second rise once assembled. The top gets glazed with an egg wash and I used the option to top with granulated sugar before baking.

This babka came out looking picture perfect with dramatic ribbons of chocolate, and the interior crumb was just as beautiful. The crumb was had a uniquely fluffy, springy soft, fine, almost cottony texture that almost felt like it would be dry but wasn’t (similar to how I feel about the Breads Bakery babka). Flavor-wise, the bread was lightly sweet and felt very challah-esque. I liked that the Dutch-process cocoa seemed to lend a darker hue to the chocolate swirl and the flavor stood out as one of the best–it almost felt like Nutella. This is an excellent recipe to try if you want a soft, fluffy, not-too-sweet babka.

Taster comments:

• Fabulous chocolate flavor (oreo?!). Need the recipe!
• Soft and pillowy, the perfect amount of chocolate
• This one was noticeably fluffy! This one kind of shocked me because it didn’t look like it had that much marbling in the pieces that were out but it was my favorite.
• Maybe the first one where I felt like I could taste the bread’s own flavor fully — gently yeasty, the light wholesome sweetness of a good brioche. The texture wasn’t anything special to me, but this was the one that felt like I was getting something more than “bread vehicle for dark chocolate” (#2 felt like that too, but in a much different way, more “greater than the sum of its parts”).
• Perfect doughy texture with the right amount of chocolate taste and ratio- my favorite!!
• Not enough chocolate, kind of tasted more like challah
• Not sweet enough for me, bread is a bit dry

Melissa Weller: Squishy and croissant-like with a superior chocolate flavor

Melissa’s recipe was by far one of the most labor-intensive recipes in this bake off. The dough is fairly standard in its mixing process, though it specifically calls for European-style butter and an extra egg yolk. However, the honey/butter/chocolate filling also calls for the addition of homemade chocolate shortbread or storebought cookies. I looked for a storebought version in at least 5 stores before giving up and making my own chocolate shortbread. Nicola Lamb noted that crumbs made a big difference in her filling, so I was curious to compare it to Melissa’s crumb filling.

Once again, I used the overnight rest option for Melissa’s dough. I also skipped the chocolate glaze partly for consistency with other loaves and partly because it seemed too unwieldy for the tasting.

Of all the babka, this one felt like the closest to what Buttermilk by Sam describes as the “croissant-like” texture of Breads Bakery’s storebought babka. Something about the airy texture yet slight squishiness of the dough really appealed to me. It had a similar openness to Shannon Sarna, but didn’t have the almost grainy firmness to the crumb, and I preferred the softer crumb here. Flavor-wise, the bread itself was buttery and appealing, but it was the chocolate that really stood out to me–probably my top in terms of filling flavor! The chocolate crumbs also left a fun streusel-like texture along the top of the loaf which I loved. Overall, a stunning loaf that’s worth the effort.

Similar to: Duff Goldman, Bonnie O’Hara, Preppy Kitchen, America’s Test Kitchen, Michael Solomonov

Taster comments:

• Nice springy texture. Not dry at all and nice chocolate flavor. I would love to have this with a cup of coffee!
• Buttery, nice amount of chocolate. A smidge dry
• Buttery and croissant-like texture. Nice chocolate flavor and well balanced.
• very bready texture, not a lot of softness in texture or chew, falls apart pretty easily. chocolate also not very sweet.
• I really really love the flavor – not sure what I’m tasting but it’s very buttery and vanilla-y. I didn’t like the texture though, which was very dry.
• Not enough chocolate, kind of tasted more like challah
• Had a mild sweetness and wasn’t overly chocolatlaty.
• This may just be because I got kind of an outer piece, but this almost tastes like shortbread to me, haha. Kind of buttery with a good crisp (but in a bread way, not a cookie way, of course). The chocolate was a bit more “cooked down” — dried out, like a crust more than a filling. Interesting and not unpleasant or anything, but not my thing.

Smitten Kitchen: Soft, fluffy, buttery dough wrapped around fudgy layers of chocolate

One of the most highly requested contenders to test was Ottolenghi’s chocolate krantz cake. In the end, I went with Smitten Kitchen’s adapted version because of the slightly clearer instructions and tweaks for efficiency. It’s a straightforward recipe that calls for adding softened butter after mixing the dough (which allows the gluten to develop first), which you can then immediately chill overnight. The filling is a simple melted chocolate, butter, cocoa and powdered sugar mixture (I omitted the optional cinnamon). You’ll need to to let this rise for 1-1.5 hours for the second rise before baking.

This loaf came out looking remarkably similar to Buttermilk by Sam’s loaf, and the similarities extended to the texture as well. Both are delightfully fluffy with a satisfyingly even crumb and clean, yeasty flavor. To me, Sam’s crumb felt just a hair coarser and more firm while Smitten Kitchen’s crumb was slightly plusher, but both were still really enjoyable! Given that Sam’s recipe uses the tangzhong method, I expected the opposite to be true. However, it makes sense when Smitten Kitchen has a 14% fat ratio to Sam’s 5% ratio (and is actually impressive that Sam’s loaf gets so close texturally with less fat).

Like Sam’s loaf, I also would have enjoyed a few more chocolate swirls in this loaf, but this would be a great option if you really want to taste the pure freshness of the bread itself. There’s also a generous amount of sugar syrup, which I made sure to use up. I loved the added sweetness this lent to the loaf, even if it penetrated the bread somewhat unevenly. Hitting a pocket of moist syrupy bread felt like winning the lottery! This is a great pick for a fluffy, bready classic babka.

Similar to: Ottolenghi’s chocolate krantz cake, New York Times, Joshua Weissman, Pretty Simple Sweet

Taster comments:

• The bread was nice and moist without feeling bogged down by the chocolate
• Brioche like (in a very positive way). Good balance of flavors.
• It was soft, tasty and chewy.
• Good texture- cakey and soft. needs to be more chocolatey
• Simple, challah consistency, not overpowering
• Here’s something odd to me, the filling on this almost had a mildly jelly-ish texture, not in slickness but in sort of a viscous mouthfeel. I enjoyed it but was also perplexed by it. The bread feels like a good challah to me, but I can’t discern the flavor beyond the chocolate. (I made SUCH an effort to pick balanced pieces, and it still didn’t work. 🫠)
• Swirls of chocolate were fudgy, and the dough was spongy, almost like a cake.
• chocolate is dark and not very sweet, layers fall apart as you eat them (in a positive way)

Breads Bakery: a fudgy and richly swirled bread with crunchy edges and a fluffy, syrup-soaked middle

I was both delighted and intimidated to discover that the official Breads Bakery babka recipe is available to the public online! Their recipe starts with their challah dough with bread flour, oil or butter (I used oil), eggs, sugar and salt that all gets mixed together and left to rise for under an hour. This was actually one of the simplest recipes both in the dough assembly and the filling–it’s just Nutella and dark chocolate chips.

After assembling, the final rise is for another 1-1.5 hours, which is one of the shorter total rise times of all the recipes. This recipe says it yields 4 loaves and they did come out noticeably smaller than the other loaves. I actually think splitting the dough into 2 loaves would have yielded loaves more comparable in size to the other recipes (but if you try this, definitely adjust the bake time). NOTE: I used the option to freeze/defrost the babkas as I had assembled them the day before to save time on baking day.

Similarly to Smitten Kitchen, this recipe called for a generous amount of sugar syrup that I made sure to use up across all 4 loaves. Like Melissa Weller, these loaves also had a fun top texture thanks to the chocolate chips in the filling. The interior also had an open, structured yet soft crumb similar to Melissa Weller that gives croissant-like vibes, though not actually that comparable to a croissant. There was more variation in texture from the crunchy edges to slightly drier pockets vs. pockets of bread that had been soaked in syrup. While the bread itself is not that sweet, the syrup permeates many pockets of the bread for a perfect (to me) level of sweetness. This felt like a more flavorful version of Shannon Sarna’s loaf in both the bread and filling.

Overall, the balance of chocolate to bread felt pretty ideal and most tasters were pleased with the fudgy and rich chocolate filling.

Taster comments:

• Really enjoyed this! Super fudgy
• Nice chocolate flavor, but the sugar syrup didn’t make it very far down, so the bread was somewhat dry in places.
• No notes, great first impression, excellent ratio kr chocolate to bread
• I loved how chocolaty and rich this one was!
• I liked the creamy chocolate filling, i disliked that there was not enough filling. A little on the dry side
• Moist, not crumbly, not too sweet
• Very bready, good taste but prefer a more layered babka. Good soft chocolate flavor.
• The chocolate in this one seems sweeter than the others, but I can’t help but think I’m perceiving something incorrectly because I guess I just assumed the chocolate would largely be unmodified in recipes (not sure why I think that, I’ve never made babka). The bread itself is on the dry and airy side, very light. I think if it were on its own, I would find it too dry even, but since this is babka, it’s balanced out by the chocolate.

Nicola Lamb: a densely swirled chocolate babka with an intensely fudgy texture

Nicola cites David Lebovitz’s chocolate babka as the first one she ever tried, and her dough follows a similar formula. However, she swaps out all-purpose flour for bread flour in her brioche base and departs quite a bit in the filling. She created a chocolate filling with low hydration, relatively lower sugar and at least 50% chocolate (the only one to use dark brown sugar in addition to melted chocolate, butter and cocoa). But the key to a super fudgy filling is by using a crumb–so she incorporates a simple crumb made from butter, brown sugar, flour, cocoa powder and salt. (I was tempted to use this crumb in Melissa Weller’s babka in lieu of making my own chocolate shortbread, but in the end I figured we had to compare the differences. And I think an unbaked chocolate crumb works just fine or even better compared to baked cookie crumbs!)

The loaf gets finished with more chopped chocolate in the filling, an egg wash, and a cinnamon simple syrup that gets brushed over the baked loaf. And we can’t forget the most important part–rolling the dough into a 20×12″ VERY THIN rectangle before spreading the filling. Breads’ recipe actually calls for an even larger rectangle (18×18″ for two babka’s worth of dough), but Nicola’s somehow felt the most difficult to roll out before the dough was so thin.

In the end, the elbow grease was worth it because rolling up all that filling into the super thing dough led to what felt like millions of layers!! You can see a clear visual difference in the number of layers in Nicola’s loaf vs. all the others. This one reminded me the most of Oneg’s babka and the chocolate filling was indeed fudgy. In fact, the entire loaf had kind of a fudgy, chewy, especially doughy-in-the-center quality because you barely have any pockets of fluffy dough–just enough to support the ribbons of chocolate. And that’s the way many tasters liked it! The cinnamon syrup on top was the icing on the cake. While I don’t generally prefer cinnamon and chocolate together, the subtle perfume of the cinnamon syrup was a nice touch to the intense chocolate masterpiece. This is the PERFECT babka to make if you’re a chocolate/doughy babka lover!

Taster comments:

• My favorite. Moist, a bit chewy. Super chocolatey. Great flavor
• I love a overly choco chewy babka, equal bread to chocolate ratio
• the texture i expected from a classic babka, squishy but still can distinguish the texture. super sweet though for my palate.
• The most chocolatey which is what I want in a babka
• Loved the dark chocolate flavor and the thin layers of pastry
• Also very good but a little TOO much chocolate?? Is that possible???
• I feel like this is the outlier sample. Thinner layers, yielding a chocolate:bread ratio that’s much closer to 1:1 compared to all the others, to the point that it almost feels more like eating chocolate than babka. So is it the platonic ideal of babka? I don’t think so, but it’s my favorite one nonetheless because I like chocolate, haha. The thing that surprises me is that the texture somehow isn’t total mush, which can sometimes be the case with any pastry that’s got a lot of thin layers. The bread isn’t terribly bread-like, but it holds up and the structure didn’t lose integrity.
• Rich, with good chocolate bitterness. A little too much chocolate
• by far the most chocolate forward, but as a chocolate person not in a good way. the amount of chocolate made the babka almost soggy, and claggy in the mouth texture-wise.
• It honestly had too much chocolate, which inhibited the bread from rising, which caused it to feel quite gummy
• Too bland and dry

Recommendations

Crowd favorite: Nicola Lamb

Erika’s picks: Alexandra Cooks, Nicola Lamb, Smitten Kitchen

For the chocolate lover: Nicola Lamb, Breads Bakery

For a classic brioche-style babka: Breads Bakery, Melissa Weller, Shannon Sarna

For a fluffy challah-style babka: Smitten Kitchen, Buttermilk by Sam, Alexandra Cooks

For a fluffy, bready, streusel-topped babka: King Arthur, Tori Avey