Chocoholics Deeply Delicious Dark Chocolate Raisin Loaf (Abm)

Submitted by Ethan UK

"Spicy Fruits bread are wonderful, I make them all the time, but sometimes nothing else but chocolate will satisfy! This is based on a Panasonic chocolate loaf, but I didn't think that the standard recipe was chocolatey enough and was too high-fat. This is much lower fat but much more chocolatey. It is wicked! - and it's delicious! (Even for chocaholics that aren't counting the calories). Incidentally I measure this entirely by weight not volume (so I can work out the calories and know exactly how naughty I'm being) so the volume measures are approximations. Including for a very thin glaze of Icing (confectioners) sugar and milk it works out at around 1990 calories for the 765g loaf or 2.6 kCal/g which is pretty excellent - lower than most store-bought fruit loaves let alone the cakes and the chocolate stuff! This is a really indulgent bread that actually is not all that bad for you (provided you don't have it every day :) - certainly a lot better than a candy bar! For serious extra luxury you might like to add a little rum, brandy or possibly sherry in place of some of the water. Yummy!"

 

• Ready In: 1hr 5mins
• Ingredients: 16
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• Loaf

• 1 1⁄16 cup water (room temperature)
• 0.77 lb white bread flour
• 1⁄4 teaspoon vitamin C powder (optional)
• 0.03 lb dried non-fat powdered milk
• 0.01 lb wheat bran (1 1/2 tsp, heaped)
• 0.07 lb nutella (I use a generic 'Chocolate Spread')
• 0.04 lb sugar
• 0.01 lb salt (I use 'Lo-Salt', 1 Tsp)
• 2 -3 drops vanilla flavoring, to taste
• 0.02 lb unsweetened cocoa powder (2 1/2 Tsp, approx)
• 0.03 lb steel cut oats
• 0.01 lb bread machine yeast (1 Tsp slightly heaped)

• At the Beep

• 0.19 lb seedless raisins
• 0.05 lb bitter chocolate chips (or more to taste)
• 0.02 lb unsweetened cocoa powder (3 Tsp, approx)
• 0.01 lb oat bran (1 Tsp Heaped)

directions

1. Remove pan from bread machine and place on electronic scales and zero them.
2. Weigh in the water (243ml water weighs 243g) and the rest of the loaf ingredients and replace pan in the bread machine.
3. Select Speciality White / Raisin or similar programme depending on your machine and crust type if required (I use a normal crust setting) and start the machine.
4. Into a small bowl weigh the raisins, cocoa powder and oat bran and chocolate chips and mix well with a teaspoon.
5. I can't get bitter chocolate chips and used the remains of a bar of bitter (70% Cocoa) chocolate which I chipped up to about 1/4 inch 'cubes' with a small sharp knife. I used 22g total in the bowl putting only the bigger bits into the bowl and retained the tiny bits to sprinkle on my next Cafe latte (I guess you could just sprinkle them on top of the hot fresh-baked loaf). For greater indulgence 30g or so of chocolate would be nice but I'd run out for some reason :). The original Panasonic recipe called for 40g. I recommend staying with bitter or bittersweet chocolate (known as 'Plain Chocolate' in the UK) and avoiding milk chocolate. You could just use bitter or bittersweet chocolate chips if you can get them.
6. Add the raisins and chocolate chip mix at the beep or at 4 to 5 minutes before final keading ends. (My machine beeps 9 mins before end of kneading which is too long as it always completely pulverises the fruit. Five minutes of mixing-in time is plenty.
7. I glaze after baking with a very thin glaze of icing sugar (1 small Tsp) and 1/2 Tsp dried milk powder mixed with a little warm water. It keeps it a bit moister if you prefer it that way.
8. You may need to add a teaspoon-ish of water if the raisins are very dried.
9. Bakes approx 1 1/2lb Loaf.
10. (Some chopped hazelnuts would really go great in this loaf but I seldom have them as they don't keep. You could perhaps swap all the raisins for about 50g-60g Glace cherries (but do drop the water down to 240ml) and then even perhaps substitute a bit of the water for Kirschwasser (cherry brandy) but haven't tried that combination, yet!).
11. This is wonderful topped or sandwiched with Dulce De Leche or squishy banana (or both I imagine). It tastes very much like a dark chocolate Brownie.

Reviews

[joanna_giselle]

I had been eyeing this recipe for ages and I finally sat down today pulled out my electronic scales and started weighing ingredients. I followed the recipe carefully but substituted wheat germ for wheat bran, milk instead of milk powder and currants instead of raisins. I also omitted the oat bran as I can't find it here and increased the chocolate chips to 40 grams and the sugar to 4 tsps. I used the sweet bread cycle and medium crust on my machine and I heated up the wet ingredients to lukewarm before starting. Well, it rose beautifully in the machine and smelled wonderful while it was baking. When I first tried a piece it was still warm and had a rather intense yeasty flavour which overpowered the chocolate. However when you let this baby sit for a couple of hours and then have a slice with butter and Nutella, it is sheer heaven- absolutely divine. I really like the fact it is dark brown too and has some healthy additions so I don't feel guilty about giving it to the kids. This is a wonderful bread which really exceeded my expectations. I encourage all bread machine owners with a sweet tooth to give it a try, you won't regret it!