BAKE 17 – MAY 27, 2020

Yeast Utilized: 2 tablespoons! Because I immediately messed up! 

Going through my shelves, I found several bars of dark chocolate. I’m not a fan of dark chocolate, so it’s slow to disappear, but I suddenly thought, Hm! I wonder if this could be used in a bread! Especially as I was officially bereft of any home-baked goods (I ate the last bagel for breakfast).

A bit of searching around the internet and I found this recipe for Chocolate Braided Swirl Bread (Babka). It looked just difficult enough for me to really mess up, so let’s do this!

Right off the bat, I dumped two tablespoons instead of teaspoons into the warm milk. Just…it’s like I don’t even want to succeed. *facepalm*

But I kept going because what else am I going to do? I let the milk and the YEAST get foamy while I mixed egg yolks and other ingredients.

Egg whites reserved because ‘waste not.’

I then added in the YEAST and milk.

Doesn’t look too terrible yet… It’s like I’m waiting for the yeast to explode.

I then added the flour for the first rise and it…didn’t…look…too…bad?? Maybe it’ll be okay?

*approaches cautiously*

After the first 30-minute rest, I kneaded the dough. It was a nice dough to knead. But then, I like kneading dough, so my standards may be low. I enjoy a dough. I then had to cut the dough in two and let them rise separately, for two hours.

Before…

…and after.

Now, while they were rising, I had to work on the chocolate filling. What am I even doing? This whole loaf is a facepalm. Not a disaster, just “what am I doing?”

I needed 12 ounces of bittersweet chocolate. I was already going to be using dark chocolate instead, and then on top of that, I didn’t end up having 12 ounces. I dumped every chocolate product I had in the house into the bowl, which means the bowl soon contained both peanut and peanut butter M&Ms.

…what am I doing? A potato masher got involved.

But guess what? This was another one that required a rolling pin, so.

I will slowly bake my way through this ridiculously old alcohol in my fridge.

The filling ended up…adequate. Not pretty. Not the right texture, but…it kinda worked?

“Kathryn, why did you put mud and trash on your dough?” Good question.

Now comes the truly fiddly stuff. First, cut the rolls in half. What could go wrong?

So far, so good.

Next, weave the strands together. I chose to do it on the pan because there is no way I’d be able to move this without it being a disaster later. I kept walking back and forth from my computer, pausing the video on the recipe site, and going step by step to create this.

Look at these monster tentacles.

In the video, the dough strands are so delicate and tiny and the weaving is so pretty. This weirdly reminds me of a trip I took to visit friends in Thailand. My exceptional Thai friends, Mint and Zen, are both beautiful, slender women. Zen is practically a Disney princess and I remember, after spending days with them, feeling massive and brutish. So, this dough is very me. (Of note: We got to train Muay Thai once or twice, which I trained for years in the United States, so I eventually got a reminder of the value of being a sturdy gal. Anyway…)

Not entirely terrible, right?

The braid ended up better than I expected! I almost feel proud. I let it rise for another 30 minutes and I really should have used a larger pan. In the oven, this beast just kept growing. Because of the egg wash, it browned quickly, so I covered it with aluminum foil. I was worried about it baking all the way through…which it seems to have done.

Monster.

Not beautiful, but tasted good–and it’s baked. I’m so relieved it’s baked.

Tastes *a bit* like a chocolate croissant…’s third cousin.

And the egg whites became breakfast the next day.

Don’t be fooled by my placid exterior. I contain undercooked garlic and will haunt you for the rest of the day.

To the next bake—–>