Recently, our kitchen unveiled a recipe for a bread that caused a collective gasp of delight in the office: Chocolate Tahini Babka. I knew I had to try making the showpiece myself as practice for the holidays.

Spoiler alert: Even with a few fumbles along the way, this babka is one for the books ((particularly “Milk Street Bakes,” our incredibly special, new compendium of 200+ baking recipes from around the world).” and add link for book). The bread is tender and buttery; the filling is chocolatey and nutty from the tahini. It’s impressive enough to serve or gift, if you can share.

And for more pointers, watch Rose Hattabaugh demonstrate the recipe on YouTube.

Don’t be afraid to start over
Friends, I messed up almost immediately. About halfway through pouring a tablespoon of salt in with my flour, I thought to double check the ingredient list, as the quantity seemed excessive for a sweet bread. I was right; the recipe calls for one teaspoon. Luckily, enriched dough—bread dough that’s flavored and fortified with fat, like butter or milk or egg yolks—is pretty darn forgiving. I could have dumped my flour and started over, but I switched to unsalted butter for the rest of the recipe to make up for the excess in salt. It all worked out. Had the full tablespoon of salt gone in, though, I might have saved my flour for my weekly sandwich loaf, rather than risk messing up the whole bake.

Use the good stuff
Babka isn’t a sandwich loaf. It’s a work of art. So when making your dough and filling, use the good stuff to amp up the effect of your hard work—especially if you’ll be serving or gifting this around the holidays. I opted for a great vanilla paste (Heilala), instant espresso powder from Blue Bottle, Soom tahini (the best) and nicer cocoa and chocolate than I usually use.

In the absence of tools, improvise
The only non-negotiable tools for babka are a stand mixer and a rolling pin. The dough is quite hydrated and sticky, and working with it by hand would take some serious elbow grease.

I recently moved, and my bench scraper and 9x5x5 loaf pans—the other tools that are pretty important to babka—were in the wind. Time to think on my feet. The recipe produces two loaves: one went into my slightly smaller Pullman loaf pan, the other I braided into a four-leaf clover on a sheet tray. And the blunt side of a straight butter knife is a passable replacement for a bench scraper. Again, the babka’s intricate appearance belies how forgiving of a recipe this bread really is.

Use Rose’s rope test to check your dough
Pro tip: If you’ve been kneading dough in your stand mixer for the prescribed seven to nine minutes and aren’t sure if it’s where it needs to be, try the trick Rose demonstrates in her YouTube demo. Stop your mixer and pull the head back. If the dough hanging from the dough hook “holds its rope"—that is to say, stretches from the bowl without rapidly tearing, looks shiny and is springy to the touch—that’s a sign that it’s formed enough gluten to stand up to multiple rises and baking.

Take breaks to chill
This isn’t my first babka rodeo, but our recipe is different in a critical way from others I’ve made. Tahini adds gorgeous complexity and a toasty, slightly bitter edge to the filling here, but it also brings a fatty, liquidy component to the mix, while other babkas rely on drier, sandier fillings. I was working in a warm kitchen—could nothing go my way this week?—which meant that my buttery dough and the unctuous filling both warmed up fast. As extra insurance, once your cylinders are formed, put them in the fridge for a few minutes to firm up. I did that for my second log and ended up with a much cleaner slice down the middle

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Priyanka Shahane