I haven't baked anything since highschool, kinda overestimated my abilities lol. Definitely a learning experience!
At least it's edible :)
A few mistakes I noticed:
Didn't activate the yeast before mixing in
Messed up the chocolate by accidentally mixing in some water from the steam from the double boiler
Shaped the dough prior to chilling
Didn't roll out the dough to the correct length. Had to smush it to get it to fit in the loaf pan
Forgot to buy vanilla paste for the dough
Forgot to premake simple syrup, didn't have any to apply after baking :(
Hopefully my next attempt goes better :)
I would be pretty happy with this if it were my first attempt!
Have a crumb shot?
Sadly I didn't think to take one right after, but here is a shot after a few slices! It's pretty dense, which is from the yeast not being active I'm sure
Could also depend on proofing temperature & time. Kinda the same thing, but even if the yeast is active it's easy to time it wrong / get impatient (speaking for myself).
Looks delicious though! I've only tried babka once, maybe I'll give it another go.
Very true! It was a bit colder in the kitchen and I kinda impatient lol. I'm sure it still would've risen more if I had waited another 30-40 min.
My advice if you have a cold house: turn the oven on its lowest settings, let it warm up for a few seconds, then turn it off and let the dough rise in there. You can also cover the dough with a wet towel or put in a tray with some warm water to keep the air nice and moist; the yeast looooves that. But if you go with the towel method just be aware that if the towel is actually touching the dough it will get very sticky and you'll be picking chunks of dough out of the towel
I'll keep that in mind, thanks!