Sourdough Bread For Beginners
I received so many messages from people who wanted to get into sourdough baking but was too scared of failure. And my advice to them is “Don’t think. Just Start!” Sourdough baking is a beautiful journey. Even for me, who have been baking for 6 years, I learn something new from every bake. Many of you have been asking for a “foolproof” sourdough recipe that have a small chance of failure, then this sourdough focaccia recipe is for you! This chocolate sourdough focaccia is fluffy, soft and moist that it tastes even better than a chocolate cake! 🥰
Making sourdough focaccia is perfect for beginners because no shaping is required. And even if you overproof your dough, this bread will turn out delicious. 😋
If you like chocolate sourdough, check out the following recipes:
Double Chocolate Sourdough (aka Brownie Bread)
Sourdough Double Chocolate Babka Rolls
Dessert Bread At Its Best
If you like chocolate and sourdough (who doesn’t), then you’ll LOVE this recipe. This dessert bread is chocolate cake meet sourdough bread, but better! 😉🙌🏻 Imagine having a delectable chocolate cake but with the texture of sourdough bread. And the best thing is, you don’t really need much attention when preparing the dough. Simply mix it, stretch and fold for a few times. Then, leave the dough the rise in a baking pan until it’s time to bake! You can bake it the same day for less tanginess. Or if you like the taste of sourdough like I do, leave it in the fridge overnight for the flavors to develop.
Vegan Butter Instead Of Olive Oil
Classic focaccia recipes calls for olive oil. But for this dessert focaccia, I opted for vegan butter to make it tastes more like a chocolate cake. Feel free to use olive oil if you want.
Make It Your Own
For the toppings, I chose the classic flavor combination chocolate and hazelnut. But you can use whatever toppings you like. Dried cherries, dates, rum soaked raisins, almonds, peanuts, walnuts, for example, will all go well with this chocolate sourdough focaccia. So, just be creative and let me know if you have any suggestions. 💃🏻
Chocolate Sourdough Focaccia (better than chocolate cake)
Course: DessertCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy6
servings30
minutes33
minutesThis chocolate sourdough focaccia is fluffy, soft and moist that it tastes even better than a chocolate cake! 🥰
Ingredients
133g bread flour
130g all-purpose flour
72g spelt flour
50g sugar
273g water*
72g levain (use at peak)
7g salt
50g vegan butter (melted) (or substitute with olive oil)
- Toppings
25g hazelnuts
Pinch of sea salt flakes
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.
- Mixing the Dough & Bulk Fermentation
- Once your levain has peaked, add 72g of levain to the dough. Knead in a mixer for 3-4 minutes or until you feel the dough has strengthened. Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
- Add 7g sea salt and 50g of sugar to the dough and mix for another 3-5 minutes. Cover and rest for 30 minutes at 75°F.
- Perform four sets of stretch and fold every 30 minutes.
- After the last set of stretch and fold, you can either place the dough in the fridge overnight or up to 36 hours. Or you can transferred dough to well oiled pan. I used a 8.25″ x 12.5″ pan.
- Grease the bottom and the sides of the pan generously with vegan butter.
- Every 30-45 min, gently stretched the dough in the pan with oiled hands. Repeat this step twice.
- After the last stretch, let the dough proof at 75°F for 2.5 more hours or until the dough is puffy and jiggly. Total proofing time in pan: 4 hours.
- 1 hour before baking, preheat your oven to 450°F.
- Drizzle with vegan butter, dimple dough, add toppings, then baked in the oven for 33 minutes.
Notes
- Different brand of flour behave differently, so you may want to withhold 15g of water during the initial mix and see how it goes. You can observe how the dough behaves after 30 minutes rest when you add the salt, and decide whether you need the reserved amount of water.
