The Best Babka Recipes, According to Eater Staff

Swirls of chocolate, cinnamon, and even black sesame

Kat Thompson is the associate editor of Eater at Home, covering home cooking and baking, cookbooks, and kitchen gadgets. She’s once eaten an entire loaf of babka in a single day.

When I asked my colleagues for their favorite babka recipes, I truly expected deafening silence. I wondered how many were going through the challenges of rolling and twisting and braiding to get to a perfectly moist and swirly loaf, when buying one would be simpler. But the answers I got taught me not to underestimate my coworkers, all of whom obsess over food and cooking (we do work at Eater, after all). These are our favorite babka recipes, from chocolate to black sesame to a challah babka hybrid.

Chocolate Babka

Melissa Clark, NYT Cooking

My wife regularly asks me why anyone would eat any babka except Melissa Clark’s NYT recipe. Unless you’re a cinnamon babka apologist, I’d have to agree. There’s nearly as much unabashedly rich chocolate filling as bread here, and the two are swirled together so completely that no bite is a letdown. Sensing that perhaps this was somehow underkill, Melissa tops the whole thing with a rich chocolate streusel that would make Augustus Gloop absolutely plotz. Oh, and there’s a slick of syrup over the whole thing to keep it moist; a dry, chalky babka this is not. It’s hefty enough to qualify as cake, and I’ve served it for birthdays on several occasions, with a few candles poking up among the braids. Like some other versions, this recipe calls for making two loaves; I guess the idea is you can make one now and save one for later, but we never manage to hold off on that second loaf for long. — Nick Mancall-Bitel, senior editor

Babka Challah

Claire Saffitz, Dessert Person

I love, love, love to bake, but yeast still intimidates me. But Saffitz’s babka-challah recipe in her bake book Dessert Person intrigued me — what’s not to love about babka and challah and why not combine the two? Her directions are very clear and I took them one step at a time — waiting for the yeast to foam and the bread to proof and rise (twice!) is a test of patience (in a good way), and kneading the dough and braiding the strands activates a different part of my brain than work does. My first attempt wasn’t too pretty but it was very delicious. So much so that I made the recipe again when I was at home in my parents’ kitchen and the results were still the same: pure sweetness. — Nadia Chaudhury, Eater Northeast editor

Rich & Tender Chocolate Babka

Erika Drake, Serious Eats

Baking a babka feels like quite the undertaking, even if you use a store-bought chocolate spread or filling. The dough can be finicky, and a stand mixer is practically a necessity to achieve a good pre-bake texture. After all that effort, a lot of babkas only stay fresh for a day or two, resulting in a gently stale log that you just feel bad throwing away. While babka that’s past its prime can easily be transformed into French toast or bread pudding, starting with a recipe that stays fresh longer may be a better way to go. Erika Drake’s babka recipe introduces tangzhong to the process, a technique where a water and flour paste is pre-cooked before being added to the rest of the dough. The result is a babka that falls somewhere between brioche and milk bread, tender without being dry and still rich without going too crumbly. A homemade chocolate filling takes this babka to another level, but a more simple cinnamon filling or even just some globs of Nutella would not be a bad call either. — Rebecca Roland, associate editor

Better Chocolate Babka

Deb Perelman, Smitten Kitchen

The first time I made babka, I used the recipe from Jerusalem, Yotam Ottolenghi’s 2012 cookbook, titled “chocolate krantz cake.” It was a success, but the process didn’t feel easy. It was, I presume, about as labor intensive as those who have never made a babka imagine the intricate-looking swirled baked good to be. But, the next time I made babka, I turned to Smitten Kitchen, where Deb Perelman has simplified that very Ottolenghi recipe to a degree where I no longer think of babka as a difficult thing to make at all. I’ve made it several times since with consistently excellent, perfectly chocolatey results. It makes two loaves so you can give one to a friend, neighbor, or coworker who will be quite impressed with your handiwork — that is, if they have yet to discover how straightforward making a babka can be. — Monica Burton, deputy editor

Black Sesame Babka

Molly Yeh, Sweet Farm

I felt really intimidated by babka, but Molly Yeh does an excellent job of spelling out the process for her black sesame babka in her latest cookbook, Sweet Farm. The result is a supremely moist loaf with impressive swirls of black sesame and Oreo filling, making it both nutty and chocolaty all at once. I love that Yeh takes the babka over the top by including a black sesame crumble, which clings to the bread and provides ample crunch and sweetness. Let me be clear: this is a day-long project (two, if you let your bread prove overnight in the fridge), but one bite of warm, feathery loaf and buttery black sesame filling makes it all worth it. — Kat Thompson, associate editor of Eater at Home