Ingredients

For the babka:

• 500g strong white flour
• 75g caster sugar
• 10g / 1 tsp salt
• 350ml milk
• 1 egg
• 15g fresh yeast or 1 sachet of dried yeast
• Zest of ½ a lemon
• Zest of ½ an orange
• 75g diced butter

• 300g dark chocolate
• 160g diced butter
• 300g icing sugar
• 3 eggs
• 160g self-raising flour

Tools

• Titanium Chef KVC7300S

Method

For the babka dough:

1. Mix the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of the mixer. Add the orange zest and lemon zest to the flour.
2. Crumble the yeast into the flour and pour the milk along with the egg into the flour. Begin to mix the dough on a slow to medium speed. This is quite a soft, supple dough. If it feels a little wet and sticky, don’t panic, just stay with it and be persistent the dough will come together. Avoid the temptation to add extra flour.
3. Continue to mix for 3 to 4 mins on speed 2 on the mixer. As the dough develops, slowly add the diced butter to the dough. Increase the speed of the mixer slightly. Continue to mix until all the butter has been incorporated.
4. Remove the dough from the mixer and place it in a clean, lightly oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to prove overnight in the fridge.
5. The following morning, remove the dough from the fridge. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface. Knock back the dough. With a rolling pin, roll the dough out until rectangular in shape and about 1 cm in thickness.
6. Leave the dough to rest while you make the brownie filling.

For the brownie mixture:

1. Melt together the chocolate and butter in a bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water.
2. As the chocolate and butter are melting, whisk together the icing sugar and eggs until pale in colour and almost doubled in size.
3. Remove the butter and chocolate from the heat and, fold into the egg and sugar mix, then add in the self-raising flour. It's now time to add the brownie filling to the babka

To assemble:

1. Cover the surface of the dough generously with the brownie mix. Spread the mix out with a spatula.
2. You won’t require all the brownie mix; you should have enough to make a small tray of brownies to enjoy later. With the dough outstretched in front of you, take the side furthest away from you and roll towards you.
3. Divide the rolled dough into 3 equal portions. For each portion of dough, make a cut straight down the middle, leaving a little bit at the top uncut just to hold everything together.
4. Take the two cut strands and plait them just by overlapping one over the other.
5. Place into a greased and floured bread tin. Each loaf will be approximately 500g
6. Leave the loaves to prove for 60 to 90 minutes
7. Preheat the oven to 210c.
8. Once the loaves are ready to bake, place them into the preheated oven with steam which can be created by adding hot water to the base of the oven. Bake for 15 minutes before reducing the oven temperature to 200c, then bake for a further 15 minutes.
9. Once baked, leave to cool and enjoy

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