Chocolate Polish Babka Recipe for Bread Maker

I have been wanting to make this bread for a while but could not find a bread maker recipe to use. The traditional recipe creates a very wet dough which does not work well with a bread maker. Thus, I improvised and came up with a great new family favorite! It's also a lot of fun to do together with children.

Chocolate Polish Babka

Ingredients:

• 3 whole eggs
• 4 egg yolks (save one egg white for brushing)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup warm milk
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 5 cups flour
• 1 package yeast (2 tsp)

• decorator sugar

For chocolate filling:

• 3 TB unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 TB cinnamon
  
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 TB butter melted

Combine cocoa, cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

Directions:

Beat the eggs and yolks until well mixed. Add to bread machine. Add remaining wet ingredients and then dry ingredients to bread machine (except decorator sugar).

Start Dough Cycle.

When complete, roll dough out into a large rectangle, about 1/2-inch thick. Using a pizza cutter, cut down the center in half. Spread each rectangle with half the melted butter and sprinkle with half the cocoa/sugar mixture, then roll jelly roll style, starting from the outer edges rolling inward. Repeat with the remaining dough. Twist the two rolls around each other like a braid, and arrange in a bundt or tube pan. You can also use a spring-form pan and a ramekin in the center. The dough should fill the pan about 3/4 of the way. Cover and let rise for thirty minutes to an hour.

Brush egg white on the outside and sprinkle with clear decorator sugar.

Bake in a 340-degree oven for 50-60 minutes, or until the bread sounds hollow when you tap on it. If the top browns too early, place aluminum foil on it to prevent burning.

This is how our afternoon of baking went:

Yumm!