Hybrid Baking For The Win
Remember a few years ago when cronut is taking social media by storm? Most people seem to love the products of hybrid baking. Hybrid baking usually means merging two styles or varieties of baked goods to create a new variant. As you know, I have been having so much fun experimenting with different sourdough recipes lately. If you are new to sourdough baking, feel free to head on to my Beginner’s Guide To Sourdough Baking to learn how to make your starter. ☺️ Long story short, I made this Double Chocolate Sourdough because I love both brownies and sourdough bread. Who doesn’t?🤔 So why not combine two great things into something greater? Plus, once you turn brownie into sourdough form, it’s socially acceptable to have dessert for breakfast all day everyday. 🍫😚
Two Great Things That Go Even Better Together
I like the sweetness and richness of chocolate in brownies, but I personally prefer the texture of sourdough bread. Making chocolate sourdough is not as simple as it sounds, I used to add cocoa powder to my normal sourdough recipe and call it a “recipe”. However, even if I increase the hydration to 85%, I still tend to get relatively tight crumb and dense texture. In pursuit of the perfect crumb and fluffy texture, I changed my method. Instead of adding dutch-processed cocoa powder to the dough, I replace part of the flour with cocoa powder. By doing so, I can have a better control on hydration.
To make it tastes more like brownie, I added semi-sweet chocolate chips, rum soaked raisins and butter caramelized hazelnuts. Rum soaked raisins and caramelized hazelnuts may sound too fancy for you, but trust me, they are definitely worth the effort. However, feel free to substitute with any kinds of dried fruits and nuts or seeds. I once made a chocolate sourdough with roasted peanuts and it’s pretty amazing. But when it comes to chocolate, hazelnut wins Every Single Time.
Whole Grains For A Depth of Flavor
For almost every sourdough I bake, I use around 10-30% whole grains of total flour weight as it provides a depth of flavor to the bread. In this recipe, apart from 7% of cocoa powder, I also used 10% each of spelt, semola rimacinata and rye flour. 🌾 Whole grains provided a more varied and complex flavor profile. But if you are not used to using whole grain flours or prefer white flour more, feel free to use bread flour only in this recipe.
Serving Suggestions
As you can imagine, this bread is delicious on its own. But for a more indulgent experience, I love serving it with some homemade nut butter such as vegan nutella, chocolate tahini and peanut butter.
Double Chocolate Sourdough (aka Brownie Bread)
Course: Baked Goods, Bread, Breakfast, Desserts, Desserts / Snacks / Cakes, SourdoughCuisine: SourdoughDifficulty: Medium6
servings1
hour40
minutesThis Double Chocolate sourdough bread is perfect for breakfast or as dessert. It’s also a perfect gift idea during the festive season too!
Ingredients
- Dough
30g spelt flour
30g rye flour
189g bread flour
45g coconut sugar
255g water
60g levain
6g sea salt
- Fillings
30g butter caramelized hazelnuts (recipe below) or substitute with unsalted roasted hazelnuts
30g raisins (soaked in rum overnight)
- Butter Caramelized Hazelnuts
150g unsalted hazelnuts
1/4 cup unsalted vegan butter
1/3 cup coconut sugar
1/8 tsp sea salt
Directions
- Prepare the Levain
- Feed your starter using 1:2:2 (starter:flour:water) ratio. Cover loosely and let it rise until it tripled in size, around 5-6 hours.
- Autolyse
- In a large mixing bowl, mix flour, cocoa powder and water until everything in incorporated into a dough. Cover and let it rest for 2 hours.
- Preparing the butter Caramelized Hazelnuts
- Preheat oven to 160°C.
- Preheat a small pan to medium-low heat, combine butter with sugar and salt. Heat over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the butter has melted.
- Bring the caramel mixture to a boil over medium heat and cook for 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Take the pan off the heat, add stir in the hazelnuts.
- Spread the hazelnuts onto a lined baking tray and bake for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, give it a good stir. Bake for 5 more minutes or until golden brown.
- Mixing the Dough & Bulk Fermentation
- Once your levain has peaked, add 60g of levain to the dough. Mix until you feel the dough has strengthened. Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
- Add 6g sea salt to the dough and mix until the salt is incorporated.
- Cover and let the dough rest for 30-45 minutes, or until the dough has relaxed.
- Perform one set of light bench fold.
- Rest for another 45 minutes. Perform lamination on your dough and add in the filling ingredients.
- Rest for 45 minutes or until the dough has relaxed. Perform one set of coil fold.
- Perform one more set of coil fold after 45 minutes. Then leave the dough to rest until the dough has increased by roughly 50% in volume.
- Shape the dough and transfer to a banneton dusted with rice flour. Rest for 15 minutes at room temperature. Then retard the dough in the fridge overnight or 16 hours.
- In the morning, preheat the oven to 250°C for 1 hour with a dutch oven inside. I love baking with my challenger pan.
- After 1 hour, take the dough out from the fridge and transfer it to the challenger pan using a parchment paper. Place 2-4 ice cubes beside the bread, cover the pan immediately and bake for 20 minutes covered.
- Remove the cover after 20 minutes, lower the temperature to 220°C and bake for another 10 minutes.
- For the last 10 minutes, further lower the temperature to 210°C.
- Turn off the oven and leave the oven door a crack open for 15 minutes.
- Remove the loaf from the oven and place it on the cooling rack until it’s completely cooled.
