The chill of fall and winter tends to usher people indoors for longer periods of time than they may care for. During these times, a loaf in the oven can help ward off the cold. Besides, if you’re going to wake up with a cup of coffee every morning, you may as well have a slice of sourdough to go with it. Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea, so why not make what comes out of your oven something to remember? If you’re going to have sourdough, why not make it chocolatey?
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (200 grams) sourdough starter
- 1-1/3 cups (330 grams) water
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 3-1/2 cups (450 grams) all-purpose flour and some extra for dusting
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1-1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
- Two handfuls chocolate chips
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
Directions
- Mix together all the ingredients except for the salt in a big bowl. I use a mixer to start getting everything all jumbled together, but then I have to resort to my hands once I end up with a big, brown dough ball.
- Cover the bowl with a wet towel to keep the dough from drying out, and let everything sit for 80 minutes.
- Mix in the salt. For the kneading, pull the dough and then squash one end onto the other. Stretch and fold. Stretch and fold. Do this 10 to 15 times, and then throw the thing back into the bowl. The dough will be quite sticky. Wait for the dough to double in size. This takes about 6 hours for me. If you’re staring at that dough ball, wondering whether it’s exactly double in size, just use it. If you wait too long, you’ll risk letting your dough “overproof.” You’ll know this has happened if you look at your dough bowl, and what was once a big ball now looks deflated. Your sourdough won’t rise in the oven if you try to use that. (When we tested this recipe, we found that proofing the dough for 3 hours, shaping the dough into a boule, and then doing a final proof for 4 hours or overnight worked well. — Mother)
- Once you think the dough has risen enough, heat your oven to 450 F, throw a baking stone in there, and get your dough ready in the meantime. Lightly flour your work surface (I use a cutting board), and then start to fashion your sourdough into a ball. If you want it to look like a traditional round loaf of bread when it comes out of the oven instead of having a resemblance to Pac-Man, make sure this ball is tight.
- To do that, put a palm on each side of the dough, like when you were a kid and your big sister would put both her hands on the sides of your face and try to get you to say “chubby bunny.” Then, move one hand up and the other down simultaneously so you’re somewhat “smearing” your hands across the dough to twist it. Then, tuck the edges of the dough ball underneath itself. Repeat the process until you end up with a uniform ball shape.
- Now, use a really sharp knife and score an “X” (or other shape) into the top of the dough. As your bread bakes in the oven, it’ll expand and rupture. The scoring will make it rupture where you want it to. Scoring keeps it pretty.
- With the oven ready, grab your mitts, put a piece of parchment paper on your stone, and then transfer your sourdough ball into the middle. Let it all go back into the oven for 40 minutes, and by the end, you should have a pretty loaf of vanilla, chocolate, and cinnamon-flavored sourdough bread.
So, what does it take to make it? I’ll assume you already have a sourdough culture somewhere in your house. If you don’t have one already, I highly recommend checking out some of the sourdough tutorials over at the Mother Earth News online video courses; Jessica Moody has created a number of helpful ones. In preparation, I feed my culture in the morning and evening the day before I intend to do a bit of baking. By the next morning, everything is good to go. (We recommend that half a day before you bake, combine 200 grams of flour, 200 grams of lukewarm water, and a generous spoonful of your starter to create the levain. Use 200 grams of the levain in your sourdough loaf; the rest can become your new starter! – Mother)
Do’s and Doughn’ts
- Let your loaf sit until cool, and then cut off your slices with a serrated bread knife as you need them. This isn’t a loaf of Wonder Bread. This is art. Cut as you eat.
- So, don’t sit alone at your kitchen table every winter morning, eating boring sourdough as you brace yourself for the incoming day. Make toast and tea. Rustic chocolate sourdough bread is a way to do that.
(We’d like to thank Alyssa Warner for her extensive notes and recommendations when testing this recipe. – Mother)
Aden Tate enjoys hiking in the woods, canoeing, and reading biographies. When he’s not working on his truck, he can often be found taking pictures of mushrooms or baking bread.
