Chocolate Walnut Butter Bread

Jane*in*RI's Note:

This is from the wonderful "Breakfast Book" by Marion Cunningham. It was my first attempt (and only, so far) at making yeast bread. Couldn't be simpler and is delicious.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 45 mins
• Prep Time: 1 hrs
• Cook Time: 45 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 32 slices

• ½ cup water
• 1 package yeast
• 3 ½ cups flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
• 4 eggs , room temp
• 12 tablespoons butter , softened (pref unsalted, no marg)
• 1 cup walnuts , coarsely chopped
• 6 ounces semisweet chocolate (good quality chunks, not chips, coarsely chopped)

Directions:

1. Put the water in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle in the yeast.
2. Stir& allow to blend for 5 min to dissolve.
3. Add the flour, sugar, salt& eggs to the yeast mixture and beat until well blended.
4. Beat the butter in gradually until batter is smooth.
5. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let batter rise until it doubles in size.
6. Stir batter down and add walnuts& chocolate.
7. Spoon into 2 greased 8x4 loaf pans (pans should be half full).
8. Bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 45 minutes.
9. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto racks.

Reviews

[moxie]

Delicious and such a nice change in the morning! I love that it is not a sweet bread, but a wonderful hearty, nutty loaf with treasured surprises of gooey chocolate inside. Perfect with morning coffee. Thanks for sharing the wonderful recipe.

[89240]

Very good. I really didn't want any walnuts in it so I replaced that with more chocolate chunks, probably only a half cup though. It was very rich and buttery, but I think I'll add another tablespoon of sugar to the dough next time because I would like it to be a bit sweeter. It's like a chocolate chip cookie in bread from. I'll definitely be making this again, thanks.

[Lizzie-Babette]

What an unusual bread! I've made it twice already. Once as directed, and the second time, being a confirmed chocoholic, I added about 1/3 cup of cocoa to the flour and mixed it up really well. I also used mostly semisweet chocolate chunks, along with some milk chocolate chunks. When I took a loaf to work, it was totally devoured within 10 minutes! The only thing I had a bit of a problem with was stirring down the dough and adding the chocolate and walnuts at the end - it's a stiff dough, and is just a bit tricky to incorporate the goodies into the risen dough, but it's totally worth it! I'll be making this recipe often - thanks, Jane.