Brioche with Chocolate and Nut Butter

Here's how:

• 1

  Crumble the yeast into a bowl, add the milk, and stir until dissolved. Add the remaining ingredients, except for the butter. Knead the dough with a dough hook on medium speed for about 8 minutes. Double that time if you’re kneading the dough by hand.

• 2

  Add room-temperature butter in cubes, gradually kneading until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the bowl. Then knead the dough for a total of about 5–7 minutes. Finally, add finely chopped chocolate pieces to the dough on low speed. The dough may “collapse” slightly during kneading when you add the butter. But don’t worry—the dough will come back together once it’s finished kneading.

• 3

  Cover the dough and let it rise until it doubles in size, about 60–90 minutes.

• 4

  Grease a springform pan about 26 cm in diameter. Roll out a small portion of the dough and place it in the bottom of the pan. Roll out the rest of the dough into a long, flat rectangle and spread room-temperature Nutella or another nut butter filling on the dough before rolling it up. Cut the roll into 12 equal pieces. Place the pieces cut-side up in the pan—three in the center and the rest arranged in a circle around them.

• 5

  Cover the pan and let the dough rise until it doubles in size, about 60–90 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

• 6

  Brush the cake with beaten egg, place the brioche in the center of the oven, and bake for about 35 minutes until it’s nicely browned. Let the cake cool on a wire rack before carefully removing it from the pan.