Chocolate sourdough bread
This chocolate sourdough bread recipe yields mildly sweet and fragrant chocolatey bread with a light and airy texture, perfect for sandwiches. This chocolate bread is made without yeast using the ripe sourdough starter. It is a super delicious and an easy bread recipe that you should definitely try.
Ingredients
- 400 g bread flour
- 80 g Sourdough starter (ripe and bubbly )
- 280 g water
- 35 g Cocoa powder
- 55 g sugar
- 1 tablespoon Butter melted
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 5 g salt
Instructions
Preparing the starter:
- Start by feeding the starter. We need the ripe and bubbly starter by the time we start to make the dough.
- In a big bowl combine the sourdough starter (or levain) with sugar, butter, vanilla, and water. Mix well and set aside. In another large bowl combine flour, salt, and cocoa powder. Whisk all the dry ingredients together.
Making the dough:
- Now add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and combine well using the back of a wooden ladle or something similar. Combine well until all the flour is incorporated and a wet dough ball is formed.
Autolyse:
- Now we want to let it rest for about an hour. This stage is called autolyze. Clean the sides of the bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap.
Stretching and folding the dough.
- With slightly wet hands grab the dough by putting your hands under and stretching it outwards. Stretch it to point till you could easily stretch it without feeling any resistance from the dough. Now fold it under the opposite side of the dough. Rotate the bowl, 45 degrees, and repeat. In one session of Stretching and folding, you should be doing 4-6 stretches and folds. Do 4 rounds of stretching and folding in total, spaced about 40 minutes apart.
- By the end of the process, your dough will be smooth and supple. The dough should have started to become fuller in volume.
Cold rise.
- We will complete the bulk rise in the refrigerator. Let it cold-rise in the fridge overnight.
- If you do not want the bulk rise the dough overnight, just let it bulk rise at room temperature till it becomes about 1 ½ times in volume and then, just pop it into the fridge for an hour or two, so that it becomes easy to handle and shape.
Shaping
- Take out the dough on a flour-dusted surface. Flatten the dough into a rectangle using fingers (flour-dusted). Now roll the dough into a log and place it on the work surface with the seam side down. Now lift the shaped dough and transfer to a 9X5 inch greased loaf pan.
Second rise or proofing
- Now let the dough double up in volume. It should rise about an inch above the rim at the center of the pan. That is when you know that the bread is ready to bake.
Baking
- Towards the end of the proofing period, preheat the oven to 375 0F. Bake the sourdough chocolate bread for about 35-40 minutes.
- Let the bread cool for 15 minutes before removing it from the loaf pan. When removed from the loaf pan, let the bread cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.
Notes
- For best results, measure all the ingredients properly using a weighing machine.
- Make sure that the starter is ripe and bubbly. You can do a float test to check if the starter is ready. Another way to tell if the starter has peaked is to see if it has more than doubled and there is a dome shape at its top with some dimple-like indentations. If you store your starter in the fridge and like to go with the levain technique, read the starter section (ingredients) of the blog post.
- Too much Cocoa powder can affect the overall texture of the bread, so do not go crazy with it. You might end with a denser bread. So, I suggest adding more chocolate in form of toppings. Be it chocolate shavings or chocolate chips.
- Chocolate makes the dough sticky. So, it is a good idea to work with cold dough. That is why I suggest going for a cold rise in the fridge for 8-9 hours or more depending on your baking schedule.
- If you do not want the bulk-rise the dough overnight, just let it bulk rise at room temperature till it becomes about 1 ½ times in volume and then, just pop it into the fridge for an hour or two, so that it becomes easy to handle and shape.
- If you want to add chocolate chips or chocolate shaving to the bread dough, incorporate them during the last stretch and fold.
- You can also shape it as a batard and bake it in a Dutch oven if you want.
- For making the chocolate bread using the sourdough discard, you have to use a higher percentage of the starter as discard is not a potent as the ripe starter.
Nutrition facts
Nutrition
Calories: 158kcal
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!