Chocolate Yeast Bread
photo by kzbhansen
- Ready In:
- 11hrs 40mins
- Ingredients:
- 17
- Yields:
-
2 loaves
- Serves:
- 20
ingredients
-
Chocolate Bread Starter
- 1⁄4 teaspoon active dry yeast
- 1 cup lukewarm water
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, plus
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-
Chocolate Yeast Bread
- 2 1⁄2 cups bread flour
- 1⁄4 cup good-quality cocoa powder
- 1⁄3 cup sugar, plus
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 cup water
- 1 1⁄4 teaspoons fine salt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature,plus more for pans
- 3 ounces good-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
- vegetable oil, for lightly oiling bowl
- 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar
directions
- Chocolate Bread Starter: Dissolve yeast in water for 10 minutes; stir in flour until completely mixed; cover loosely and leave to proof at room temperature 6 hours.
- Chocolate Yeast Bread: Stir and thoroughly mix flour, cocoa, 1/3 cup sugar, yeast, water and 1/4 cup Chocolate Bread Starter (save the remainder for another use); let rest 15 minutes.
- Scrape dough onto floured work surface and knead in salt and butter; knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes; knead in chopped chocolate thoroughly.
- Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap; let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours; leaving dough in bowl, fold dough into thirds as if folding a letter for an envelope, recover with plastic wrap; let rest 30 minutes.
- Butter two 7"x3"x2" loaf pans and coat with remaining 2 T granulated sugar; divide dough in half and then divide each half into 4 even pieces; roll and form each piece of dough into a tight ball; place four pieces, smooth side up, side-by-side in each loaf pan; cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until doubled, about 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 375°; combine egg yolk and cream and brush on loaves; sprinkle with turbinado sugar; place in oven, reduce temperature to 350° and bake for 40-45 minutes or until loaves have a slightly hollow sound when tapped on the bottom.
- Let rest in loaf pans for 5 minutes before removing to wire rack.
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Reviews
-
This was a really good bread. The edges of my bread were overcooked and I know my oven temp was ok cause I have a thermometer in it. I used Ghiradelli chocolate and it did need a bit more flour. I love the turbinaro sugar on this, it made it quite pretty and tasted good. I will be making this again, thanks for posting.
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What a WONDERFUL bread! It has the texture of a brioche and it's not too sweet, just perfect for a special occasion breakfast bread. IMO, all great breads have a starter of some sort - sourdough, sponge, biga or whatever, so I was so excited when, looking for a chocolate bread recipe, I found this one! I made the starter only 4 hours before using it, but it worked very well anyway. In step 2, I dissolved the yeast in water and let it stand until bubbly. Knowing that the organic stone-ground sifted unbleached flour I use is very dry, I added and extra 1/3 cup water, which was perfect. I did knead the mix in step 2 for 10 minutes before the 15 minute autolyse (by trial and error, I found out that this is the way I get the best crumb), and kneaded it for another 10-15 minutes after kneading in the salt and butter. I added in 1/2 cup dried cranberries (it's Valentine's day!!) together with the chocolate pieces. I was afraid this would affect the rise, but not at all (OK, I cheated a bit by addind 1 tsp gluten flour in step 2 to prevent this - looks like it worked), and I loved the contrast of the tangy berries with the chocolate pieces. I let the dough rise (step 4) in the fridge for 7 hours, then took it out and let it rest and come back to room temp for 1 hour. After this, I shaped it into a flower (6 small balls around a bigger one) and put it in a 8 inch cake pan, which turned out to be a little too small! Next time, I think I'll use a cookie sheet for this. We enjoyed pulling apart the little rolls/petals for eating it with cream cheese, YUM! One last change I made: didn't have any cream, so I used milk instead - no problem. Thank you SO MUCH for this recipe!!
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
sugarpea
Snohomish, WA
I’m a former interior designer and landscape designer. At the moment I get to enjoy being at home and working only when I want to. I like rollerblading, hiking, backpacking and trips to the ocean. I grew up on a farm in the Midwest and moved to the Northwest when I was thirty, over twenty years ago. I’m afraid they’ll have to bury me here in WA. This is God’s country and I’m never leaving.
I have a smallish collection of cookbooks, preferring to use the library and a copy machine. Among my favorites though, are: Recipes 1-2-3, by Rozanne Gold, a collection of recipes containing no more than 3 ingredients (excepting water, salt and pepper); A Treasury of Great Recipes, by Mary and Vincent Price, recipes collected from friends and chefs of great restaurants around the world; The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook, by Nancy Harmon Jenkins, about a collection of cuisines I’m convinced are the healthiest in the world and The Low-Calorie Gourmet, by Pierre Franey.
Currently my passions are our dogs, the garden, cooking, the natural world and of course, Dh. I can now add Zaar to that list of passions (translate: addiction). We have three dogs, two rescued and one adopted. They are Sugarpea, a Golden Retriever, Chickpea, a Llasa Apso and Sweetpea, a Shih Tzu; small, medium and large. We’re quite a sight out on the trail. One of the things I am most fond of about living here is the ability to vegetable garden year ‘round.