I can't really take any credit for this one, besides the fact that it looked intimidating and I tried it anyway. SmittenKitchen.com is one of the few blogs that I follow pretty consistently, and I've always had great luck with her recipes so I didn't even try to change it!
My husband said they were "eh, pretty good..." as he scampered like a schoolboy to get a glass of milk to go with his first one... (ie, he really liked them).
One thing I've learned since being married is that if there is food, my husband will eat it. Doesn't matter if he is hungry, or just ate a huge dinner, or just woke up, or is just going to bed... I think there is something in the man's mind that says it is just wrong to leave unattended food uneaten. I have to be careful now... cause it'll be my fault if he gets fat.
You can read smittenkitchen's delightful post
here:
Chocolate Swirl Buns
Heavily downsized and streamlined from Martha Stewart’s fantastic chocolate babka
Yield: 12 muffin-sized buns
Dough
1/2 cup milk, preferably whole
1/4 cup plus a pinch of granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 large egg, brought to room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus additional for bowl and muffin tins
Filling
3 tablespoons (45 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 pound (225 grams) semisweet chocolate
Pinch of salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
Egg wash (optional)
1 egg
2 teaspoons (10 ml) heavy cream or milk
Prepare dough: Warm milk and a pinch of sugar to between 110
to 116°F. If you don’t have a thermometer, you’re looking for it to be
warm but not hot to the touch; best to err on the cool side. Sprinkle
yeast over milk and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. In a small
bowl, whisk together egg and remaining 1/4 cup sugar, then slowly whisk
in yeast mixture.
In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flour and
salt. Run mixer on low and add egg mixture, mixing until combined. Add
butter and mix until incorporated. Switch mixer to dough hook and let it
knead the dough for 10 minutes on low speed. At 10 minutes, it should
be sticky and stringy and probably worrisome, but will firm up a bit
after it rises. Butter a large bowl and place dough in it. Cover loosely
with a lint-free towel or plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour, or
until doubled.
Meanwhile, prepare filling: If your chocolate is in large
bars, roughly chop it. Then, you can let a food processor do the rest of
the work, pulsing the chopped chocolate with the salt, sugar, and
cinnamon (if using) until the chocolate is very finely chopped with some
parts almost powdery. Add butter and pulse machine until it’s
distributed throughout the chocolate. (If you don’t have a food
processor, just chop the chocolate until it’s very finely chopped, then
stir in the sugar, salt, cinnamon and butter until it makes a
pasty/chunky/delicious mess.) Set mixture aside.
Generously butter a standard 12-muffin tin; set aside.
Form buns: Once dough is doubled, turn it out onto a
well-floured surface and gently deflate it with floured hands. Let it
rest for another 5 minutes. Once rested, roll dough into a large, large
rectangle. The short sides should be a scant 11 to 12 inches. The other
side can be as loooong as you can roll it. The longer you can make it — I
got mine to 20 inches before I ran out of counter space — the more
dramatic and swirled your buns will be.
Sprinkle the filling evenly over the dough’s surface. It’ll be clumpy
and uneven and probably look like there’s too much chocolate for the
volume of dough; just do your best. Tightly roll the dough back over the
filling from one short end to the other, forming a 12 to 13-inch log.
(Yes, it always magically grows because the dough is soft.) With a sharp
serrated knife, gently saw 1-inch segments off the log and place each
in a prepared muffin cup. Loosely cover buns with plastic wrap or a
lint-free towel and let them rise for another 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C).
Bake: If you’d like, you can egg wash your buns before
baking them (whisking together an egg and the cream until smooth, brush
over each bun top). I found the buns I brushed with the wash shinier but
otherwise virtually indistinguishable from the un-brushed buns in
color. Bake buns for 15 to 20 minutes, until puffed and brown. If you
have an instant read thermometer, you can take the buns out when it
reads 185 to 190 degrees in the middle of each bun.
Set buns on cooling rack. Theoretically, you should cool them
completely before unmolding them (with the aid of a knife or thin
spatula to make sure nothing has stuck). This, of course, won’t happen,
so have at them; just don’t burn your tongue. Serve with iced coffee and
a bowl of berries. For nutritional balance.
Do ahead: These buns can be formed, placed in the muffin cups
and refrigerated (loosely covered with plastic, which you might want to
oil to keep it from sticking) the night before, to bake in the morning.
You can bake them directly from the fridge. They can be baked and frozen
until needed, up to 1 month.
