Chocolate Hazelnut Sourdough

Chocolate bread? Yes please!

I dreamt of this bread, and then followed that with a deep dive on the interwebs to find different chocolate sourdoughs. I looked around at several different recipes, but in the end this one is based mostly on a chocolate cherry sourdough recipe from the NY Times, by Tejal Rao, who in turn was inspired by a loaf in “Modernist Bread.” Confusing and twisty citations aside, the bread is good. I had to make quite a few adjustments to the recipe in terms of directions and some ingredients, and I never found that I got quite the same gluten development I was hoping for in a standard sourdough. However, even with all that, it was great anyway. It is time-consuming bread, but not too much of the dreaded hands-on time. In fact, in the middle, this baby sleeps in the fridge for an alarmingly long time. It probably could be shorter, but that longer rest fits nicely in my baking windows of before or after work.

I will be honest and tell you that even though I dreamed of this recipe I was slightly concerned it would be like biting into unsweetened chocolate bar or sipping vanilla extract. All anticipation and aroma with disappointing, bitter results. Luckily enough, that was definitely not the case. Yay! If you have some time to put into a special loaf, I say give this a try. My kids prefer the bread without nuts, so I made it that way as well. I like the crunch the nuts provide, but the flavor of the sourdough and the chocolate together is complex enough on its own, that you can skip nuts should you want to. You do you.

To eat, I recommend a light toast/heat in the toaster oven and a smear of salted butter. Of course, butter just on the bread unheated is great too. I also think marmalade or brie would be fantastic on it, and I would be remiss in not letting you know that it also goes quite well with red wine too.

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Chocolate Hazelnut Sourdough

This bread takes a while to bake.  I find if I get my starter going in the am before work, I can make the dough and do the folds when I get home in the earlier afternoon.  Then I proceed through the stretch and folds, and the bread is ready to do its proofing in the bowl overnight about the time I am ready to go to bed.  The next day, after work, I remove the dough, let it come up to room temperature and bake it, then cool.  All in all, it is about a two-day endeavor.  Not for the faint of heart, but its rewards are worth it.  

Please note that this is a pretty finely crumbed sourdough, not as large gapping chewy holes that I would generally prefer in sourdough, but somehow it works quite well in this bread.  I love the hazelnuts for crunch and variety in the softer texture, but they can easily be left out.  Please do not be tempted to chop up really super great quality chocolate for the chunks.  Unfortunately, this is one of those scenarios where you need the extra stuff in chips to keep them from completely melting into the dough at the high temperature.  

This recipe can also easily be halved if you want to make just one loaf.  However, the work is relatively minor to go ahead and make 2, which makes for much easier sharing!

Servings 2 loaves

Ingredients

  • 1/4 teaspoon yeast (really just wee bit of insurance)
  • 1 1/2 cups of warm water
  • 2 1/4 cups active sourdough starter (you can tell it’s active if a blob floats in room temp water)
  • 4 cups bread flour
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder well sifted
  • 2 tablespoon strong coffee
  • 2 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
  • 2 cups dark chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup roughly chopped hazelnuts optional

Instructions

  1. In a bowl, mix the yeast and water and allow it to sit a few minutes. Whisk the sourdough starter into the mixture until dissolved, then add the flour, cocoa powder and coffee. Stir all the ingredients into a wet, shaggy mass.  Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.  

  2. After 30 minutes, add the salt and try your best to work it into the sticky wet dough evenly. It will get distributed as the dough sits and you perform the turns and folds.  You can separate the dough into two at this point, or do it before the final shaping in bowls.  If you want to keep one with just chocolate and do one with chocolate and nuts, separate the loaves now.

  3. Rest dough for 30 minutes, pull one edge of the dough up and press it down into the center of the ball; repeat with the 3 other edges of the dough (up, down, left and right sides), then cover the dough. Wait 30 minutes, then add in the chopped hazelnuts and chocolate chips. Stretch and fold 2-3 complete times at this stage to incorporate the add-ins.  Repeat the folding every half-hour ish, for a total of 6 additional folding sessions over a 3-4 hour period. You really want the gluten to develop during this time as much as possible. This is not a dough that stretches easily, but you want to try to build that as much as possible by doing the folds and giving the dough time to develop.  You will notice that the dough poofs between stretch and folds.

  4. Turn the bread out onto a lightly floured surface, give one last additional stretch and fold.  If you haven’t already separated the dough into two, do so now.  Then use your hands to create a gently twist and cup the dough, to try to build tension in the surface and make as smooth a ball as possible. This will not be a completely smooth loaf like other artisan breads. You may want to rest the dough about 10 minutes and do a second shaping if it starts to flatten out too much, instead of staying in a tighter ball. That can be a sign that the dough doesn’t have quite enough structure. Transfer each dough ball to a flour-dusted wicker breadbasket or a flour and towel lined bowl, seam side up. Cover with plastic wrap and proof in the refrigerator, for 14 to 18 hours, until dough has increased in size, and when poked, springs back ever so slightly.

  5. When you’re ready to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature for about an hour to two. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 500 with a covered dutch oven inside.  If you have two dutch ovens, you can bake both the loaves at the same time, otherwise, you can cook them consecutively.  When ready to bake, transfer the dough out of the bowl, and on to a square of parchment paper–you definitely, want to bake this with parchment so the chips on the bottom won’t burn.  Score a pattern on the top, I liked two half rounds that don’t meet at either side, like a pair of parenthesis ( ). Remove the dutch oven/s from the oven and place the bread on the parchment in the pot, cover and put back in the oven for 35 minutes. Remove lid, and bake for about 5 minutes more. I find the best way to tell if it is done is to push a thermometer into the bread dough; it should read 195 to 200 degrees for cooked bread–the bread is too dark to tell just by color. Transfer bread to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely at room temperature before cutting open.