Chocolate Babkallah

Because Aaron's people have their bread game on fleek, but it takes an anal-retentive asian girl who needs a dish to show off to her asian baking group to deal with all the details.

Ingredients:

Dough:

2.5 tsp instant yeast

0.5 cup H2O

0.5 cup sugar

3 and some change cup all purpose flour

4 tbsp (half stick) butter, cut up into small cubes

3 farm fresh turkey eggs from Darcy's flock (substitute 3 large eggs if you don't happen to have these kicking around in your fridge)

1 tsp salt

Filling:

1 stick butter

0.33 cup cocoa powder

0.5 cup powdered sugar

4 oz chocolate (dark is best)

Sizzurp:

0.25 cup water

0.25 cup suga suga

Specialty tools:

Kitchen Aid stand mixer (unless you're old school and really want that beefy right arm)

Rolling pin

To start, clear off a bunch of space and scrub down a portion of the counter where you're going to be rolling/kneading/slinging bread. Boil some water in the electric kettle. Get a shallow-ish bowl and pour a teeny bit of boiling water into it. Add cold water from the tap and mix until it's just a bit warmer than your finger (think: that comfy temp you like when you microwave your underwear in the winter). Pour off most of the warm water until there's very little, then sprinkle the instant yeast onto the warm water to activate it. Leave it alone for about 5 minutes until it starts smelling like beer - then you know it's good to go.

Meanwhile, dump the flour, sugar, and salt into the bowl of the stand mixer. Stir the activated yeast and its water to make a paste. Scrape the paste into the mixing bowl. Pour 0.5 cup boiling water into the shallow bowl that held the yeast. Put in the 4 tbsp butter and stir until it's melted. Crack in one whole egg and stir to get that liquid mixture down to a comfy warm temp. Pour that into the mixer. Separate 1 egg and put the whites in the shallow bowl, and dump the yolk into the mixer. Crack the last whole egg directly in the mixer (do it in that order in case you botch separating the second egg). Save that egg white in the fridge.

Start the mixer with the dough hook on 2, then as the dough comes together, crank it up to 4 and let er rip for 5-7 min. The dough should be sticky, but if it's just sticking all to the sides and not coming up with the dough hook, add flour 1 tbsp at a time until the dough is sticky, but only about the bottom 1/3 sticks to the bowl. I mean, it's gonna be sticky, but it'll be fine. Flour the shit out of the clean countertop, then dump out the bowl of dough. It might get stuck to everything. That's fine. Start kneading it by hand, using a spatula as a bench scraper to help you. Add a little bit more flour to the bench only if the dough is just sticking uncontrollably as you knead. It'll take a while, but knead the dough until it stops just sticking to the counter and tearing. Poke it and the dent should spring back out quickly. That's how you know it's done. If it doesn't fight you back, keep wrasslin' with it until it does. Grease the F out of the stand mixer bowl. Plop in the kneaded dough, flip around so it's greasy all over, and then cover it tightly with saran wrap. Put it in the fridge and forget about it for like 8 hours or more. When you remember it, take it out and put it on the counter or in the oven with the light on (maybe you hit "keep warm" on the oven and then turned it off so the residual heat made it kinda warm). Leave it in there and forget about it for 3 or 4 more hours. If the dough has gotten really large - for sure doubled in size, then move to the next step.

Make the filling: microwave the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Dump in the chocolate and melt that too. Then stir in the powdered sugar and cocoa powder until it becomes a warm diarrhea-like spreadable paste.

Dump the dough onto the counter. It should be smooth, pliable, and not stick to the counter. Cut it into 3 equal parts. One at a time, roll each dough third into a rectangle, about 10x15". Spread the filling onto it, leaving about a half inch border. Roll it into a long log. Braid the logs together. Put 'em in a large loaf pan, or onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover with saran wrap, put it in the oven with the light on, and forget about your braided dough for another couple hours. When you come back to it, it should be nearly doubled in size, and puffy like a soft marshmallow (gentle pokes should not re-inflate quickly). Take it out of the oven and start preheating to 350.

At that point, grab that egg white you saved from earlier. Whip it with a couple teaspoons of water. Now it's an egg wash. Apply that gently to your braided bread, being careful not to deflate the puffiness. Bake for 35 min.

While the bread's baking, get a small frying pan, dump in the sugar and water. Heat to a boil, just until the sugar dissolves. Wait for the bread to be done. As soon as it's out of the oven, slather every inch of the bread in sugar syrup. Let it cool, and marvel at the caloric monstrosity you have wrought.