Chocolate-Cinnamon Challah

I love challah. I love making it, and I love how it's soft and slightly sweet and beautifully golden brown. I love when I pull it apart and steam rises off of the whorls inside. One of the only things I like more than challah is chocolate, which begs the question, why not make challah with chocolate? I've always enjoyed the smitten kitchen babka (the one without orange, because I'm just not a fan of orange in my bread), and I like cinnamon rolls and cinnamon swirl bread, so I decided to just roll it all together into a challah that was laced through with chocolate swirls and cinnamon swirls. 

Bread is a little labor intensive, and always takes longer the first time when I'm checking each step to make sure I'm doing it right, but it just makes me so happy when it comes out of the oven. My host family liked the regular challah and this one, so more bread experiments will surely follow when I have free weekends. It's nice to have appreciative taste testers, and even nicer because they don't often know how something is supposed to turn out so whatever I make is good enough for government work, as the saying goes. I made chili the other day and they even went back for seconds, so I know I'm on the right track, but I did rein in my Colorado instincts and only add a dash of chili powder to their portions. My portion, on the other hand, had a very liberal dose of both chili powder and Chilean merken. It was mighty tasty, if I do say so myself. Until I can convince the world that spicy is the best way to eat anything, we'll stick to sharing everything sweet.

Enjoy.

It looks a little like intestines, but tastes much better.

Chocolate-Cinnamon Swirl Challah

Adapted from a few Smitten Kitchen recipes.

Deb says, "The secrets to good challah are simple: Use two coats of egg wash to get that laquer-like crust and don’t overbake it. Joan Nathan, who this recipe is adapted from, adds that three risings always makes for the tastiest loaves, even better if one of them is slowed down in the fridge."

Time: about 4 hours from start to finish
Yield: 1 round loaf

For the bread:

2 teaspoons active dry yeast 

1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
a little less than 1 cup lukewarm water
1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil
2 large eggs (+1 for egg wash)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon table salt
4 cups all-purpose flour

For the chocolate filling:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup semisweet chocolate
Pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

For the cinnamon filling:

1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar (or 1/3 cup white sugar if you, like I, live somewhere that brown sugar is hard to find)
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
Pinch of salt

Making the dough:

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar in lukewarm water; set aside for 5 minutes until a bit foamy. If it doesn't foam, start over - your yeast is dead. Whisk oil into yeast, then beat in 2 eggs, one at a time, with remaining 1/4 cup sugar and salt. Gradually add flour. When dough holds together, it is ready for kneading. 

Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Clean out bowl and grease it, then return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a warm tea towel, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. Dough may also rise in an oven that has been warmed to 150 degrees then turned off. Punch down dough, cover and let rise again in a warm place for another 30 minutes.

Making the filling:

While you are waiting, make the chocolate filling by pulsing the chocolate, butter, sugar, salt and cinnamon briefly in a food processor until it makes a crumbly paste. 

To make the cinnamon filling, just combine the cinnamon, brown sugar and salt in a small bowl (the butter will be spread on your dough). 

Making the swirls:

After the second rise, turn your dough onto a floured counter and divide it in half. Using a rolling pin, roll the first half out into a very long, thin rectangle. I think mine was about 30 inches by 8 inches, but really just as long as you can get is good. It doesn't need to be very wide, and the shape isn't terribly important as long as it's more or less rectangular. Spread the chocolate filling evenly over the dough, then roll it up tightly into a log. If you can, stretch your log out a little more so it's as long as you can get it, then cut it in half and set both ropes aside. 

Take your second half of the dough and roll it out into a long rectangle just like the last one. Spread on your softened butter, then evenly shake the cinnamon-sugar filling over the dough. Roll it into a long, tight log, pull it longer if you can, then cut it in half as well. You should now have two chocolate ropes and two cinnamon ropes of equal lengths.

Weaving the bread:

Put your two chocolate ropes parallel to each other, then weave your two cinnamon ropes perpendicular to them so you have a woven square with eight legs branching out from it. Take the four legs that are underneath the center, and jump them over their neighbor to the right. Then take the legs that are now underneath (the ones you just jumped) and jump their neighbor to the left. If you have more rope left, repeat the right jump-left jump until you have no more dough, and tuck the edges underneath the dough so when you finish it is a braided round. If you're confused, Deb has good instructions, and even better pictures to help you in the process.

Transfer the dough to your baking sheet. Beat your remaining egg and brush it on loaves (don't throw away the extra - you will do a second egg wash before baking!). If you're saving it for later, now is the time to freeze your bread or put it in the fridge for a few hours. Otherwise, let it rise for another hour, preheating the oven to 375ºF in the last 15 minutes. 

Before you put it in the preheated oven, brush the loaves again with egg wash. You can sprinkle the bread with seeds or a little bit of sea salt if you wish. (If you're using the frozen bread, remove it from the freezer 5 hours before baking.)

Bake in the middle of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes. It should be golden brown; if yours starts getting too dark too quickly, cover it with foil for the remainder of the baking time. The best way to check for doneness is with an instant-read thermometer — the center of the loaf should be 195 degrees.

Let cool for a bit, then cut into slices or pull apart as you see fit.

New Books read: 122

Total Books read: 165
Currently reading: I'm in the middle of Robin Hobb's new novel Fool's Quest, which is the second book in her most recent trilogy, Fitz and the Fool. If you haven't read them, you need to start with Assassin's Apprentice and work your way through from there.

I just finished The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, which I found interesting although I think he was stretching for the conclusions he made. It's similar to Freakonomics, which I found more convincing and more fascinating.