Sourdough chocolate babka

I have been waiting *so long* to make this. I don’t know why I did; I guess in university and post-university days I rarely ever baked with yeast and had some apprehension about the rising and the rolling parts. But whenever it was that I first learned about babkas (maybe from Smitten Kitchen?), even without having ever eaten it before, I knew in my heart that it would blow my mind away. And boy was I right, i.e., I should have made this sooner lol.

I already had some sourdough starter so I decided to use that instead of fresh yeast (inspired by I am a Food Blog’s small batch recipe). Protips that I learned along the way:

1. If you usually refrigerate your starter, take it out, feed it, and let it sit out in room temperature for at least a day before starting this/any other recipe that requires a mature starter! It gets a lot bubblier that way.
2. I let my dough rest longer between turns than indicated in the recipe (got busy) and it was still OK.
3. I used a standard short loaf pan for this (vs. a Pullman loaf pan) and it still turned out great.
4. This makes *a ton* of babka; you can probably wrap some for freezing. I gave some away to friends.
5. Checking for a temperature of 200°F inside was key to success.
6. You don’t need that much syrup for brushing on top. I used some syrup that I had leftover from attempting Boba Guys’ matcha latte LOL.

tl;dr—highly recommend the recipe below (it’s so thorough and organized and speaks to my engineer brain). It just takes two days to make :P

(original recipe from The Perfect Loaf)