Double Chocolate Sourdough Bread 

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If you love chocolate and sourdough bread, you will adore this double chocolate sourdough bread recipe! It has a brownie’s flavor and a sourdough loaf’s texture! Best of both worlds!  This loaf has a rich chocolate flavor with chocolate chips in every bite.

The first time I baked a double chocolate sourdough bread and my house filled up with the most delicious smell of chocolaty aroma; everyone ran upstairs asking me if I was baking brownies!? I will take a long-fermented sourdough chocolate loaf over brownies any day! This recipe takes sourdough to the next level! 

Baking a loaf of sourdough is pure therapy. Not only will it fill your kitchen with delicious smells of yeasty goodness, but you’ll also walk away with a handful of life lessons and a piece of unbelievably delicious bread. This no-knead bread will become something you bake for your family weekly! This sourdough bread is baked in a Dutch oven to develop the best oven spring with a  fluffy, sweet, and perfectly tangy crumb, which combines perfectly with the chocolate and espresso.

BREAD MAKING TOOLS

Sourdough bread has been made for thousands of years without any modern tools. However, some equipment is available to make this process a little easier.

•  Kitchen scale scale- There is one tool that, in my opinion, is necessary: a food weight scale. When it comes to baking sourdough bread, precision is key! There’s no better way to measure accuracy than using a digital food scale. 
• Dutch oven- Last but not least, you will need a Dutch oven. A Dutch oven helps the bread to get the delicious crunchy crust that sourdough bread is famous for. Without a Dutch oven, it will be hard to achieve this.
• 9-inch bowl or a banneton basket
• Large mixing bowl 
• Wire rack

IS YOUR SOURDOUGH BREAD BURNING FROM THE BOTTOM WHEN BAKED?

• Placing something between your Dutch oven and the base of your oven can lower the heat transfer underneath. Try leaving a sheet pan on the lower rack than the Dutch oven.
• Another trick to prevent sourdough bread from burning is to cut out a silicone mat to fit your Dutch oven. And place it on the bottom of the Dutch.

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INGREDIENTS FOR SOURDOUGH DOUBLE CHOCOLATE BREAD:

This recipe makes two loaves!! You can cut this recipe in half to make only one loaf

• 710 grams of filtered warm water
• 6 tablespoons espresso or javy espresso concentrate. 
• 240 grams active sourdough starter (fed in the last 12 hours)
• 1000 grams of bread Flour– unbleached baker’s flour
• 20 grams salt
• 80 grams cocoa powder
• 90 grams of sugar- you can use brown sugar, granulated sugar, or coconut sugar
• 12 oz of chocolate chips- milk chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, or semi-sweet chocolate chips

The most important component in this recipe is the sourdough starter! To make a delicious loaf of sourdough double chocolate bread, use an active starter fed within 4-12 hours before use. To check if your sourdough starter is ready, do the float test. Drop a spoon of your sourdough starter into some water. If it floats, that means it is ready to use! If it does not, it either needs more time to rise, or your starter is weakened.  The starter needs to be bubble and active. If you want to grow your sourdough starter from scratch, follow this easy guide.

HOW TO MAKE SOURDOUGH BREAD

Place a large bowl on the food scale and add water, sourdough starter, and espresso (zero out the scale after each ingredient). Mix it using a dough whisk.

Then add the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt and mix the dough to form a shaggy ball. You don’t need to knead the dough; combine all the ingredients till there are no dry streaks of flour. The dough will be very sticky. You might be tempted to add more flour, but trust the process! Do not add more flour than what the recipe is asking for.

After a good mix, close the bowl with a wet towel or a shower cap and let the sourdough bread mixture rest for 1 hour in a warm spot. You don’t want a tight seal on the sourdough you still want air to circulate into the dough to help ferment it. Yet you don’t want the top of the dough to develop a hard crust, either.

STRETCH AND FOLDS

 Perform 3 sets of stretch and folds the sourdough, adding the chocolate chips between every stretch and fold till they are all incorporated.

Gluten relaxes over time, and this step will help build up the gluten and give it strength and shape, resulting in a beautiful rise when baking. This will also help incorporate the chocolate chips into the loaf. 

HOW TO DO STRETCH AND FOLDS

Grab one side of the dough with wet hands and stretch the sourdough as far as it lets you. Be gentle not to rip the dough, then fold it over to the middle of the bowl. Repeat this process on all sides till you go around the full circle. Once you have stretched and folded all sides of the sourdough, cover it with a damp towel and let it rest for another 45 minutes. You will need to perform 3 sets of stretches and folds with 1-hour rest between each. You should see the dough rise in between each set. 

 (After the last stretch and fold, cover the dough and let it rest for 1-2 hours) The sourdough double chocolate dough should be very bubbly and fluffy. Check on it after one hour. If it still looks like it hasn’t grown much, cover it and let it rest for another hour. 

LAMINATION

Gently take out the sourdough on a clean countertop. Do not dust any flour on the countertop. Once the dough is out of the bowl, cover it with a damp tea towel and let it rest for 10 minutes. This step will ensure that your dough relaxes, making it easier to stretch it for the next step. 

Divide the dough into 2, then gently stretch the dough into a rectangle. Use your hands to stretch the dough out on the countertop; do not use a rolling pin, as it will disturb the bubbles forming in the dough. You will NOT need to wet your hands for this step. It will be a little sticky, but make sure not to add any additional flour. If the sourdough is too sticky to work with, use your bench scraper to help. You will not need to stretch the dough out too thin. 

SHAPING THE BOULE

Fold the dough to the center, then fold the other side over it. It should now be in a log shape.

 Roll the dough into a round shape and tuck the ends underneath the dough to form a boule. Cup both hands on the outside of the loaf and push the dough towards you just an inch or so. This creates surface tension on top of the loaf to get a good oven spring by creating a good gluten structure. Turn the loaf to the right just a quarter then cup your hands against the loaf and push it towards yourself just an inch, keep doing this process till you have gone all around the circle. This aligns all the gluten strands to be equal all around. You will see the top of the dough start to tighten. The dough should be keeping its shape now.

After the sourdough is formed into a boule, twist the dough on the table to create tension on the bottom, being gentle not to rip the dough anywhere. This helps to close up any open holes on the bottom.

Now that your sourdough is shaped into a ball- lightly flour a 9-inch bowl lined with a flour sack towel using rice flour or just regular bread flour. Flip your sourdough double chocolate bread into the banneton basket with the bottom facing up. Pinch to seal any holes. Dust the Sourdough ball with flour, then cover it with plastic wrap, a plastic bag, or a shower cap. Place in the fridge for overnight bulk fermentation. The loaf will rise in the fridge up to 30%. 

TIME TO BAKE YOUR SOURDOUGH DOUBLE CHOCOLATE BREAD

Place a Dutch oven into the oven with the lid closed the next day and preheat the oven to 450F. Once it reaches 450 degrees Fahrenheit, leave the Dutch oven inside the oven for 30 minutes.

Remove your loaf from the fridge and gently flip your dough onto a piece of parchment paper big enough to cover all the bottom and sides of your Dutch oven. This will catch any of the sugar that might leak out to prevent a mess in your Dutch oven. 

This is the time to score your bread! When the sourdough bread is baking in the oven, it rises to almost double its size, and if you don’t score it, you will have random cracks throughout the loaf. Scoring gives you control over where you want the bread to expand. Use a lame ( this is the one I use and recommend!), or you can use a razor blade. If you don’t have a lame, make one deep score in the center of the sourdough double chocolate bread.

BAKING THE SOURDOUGH DOUBLE CHOCOLATE LOAF

Take the Dutch oven out of the oven; be careful; a preheated Dutch is very hot! Use oven mitts for your safety. Place the chocolate chip sourdough bread into the Dutch oven with the parchment paper, and bake for 40 minutes with the lid closed on the Dutch oven.

Remove the lid from the Dutch oven, and bake for 3-10 minutes or until it reaches your desired crust. Depending on how much color you want on your sourdough double chocolate bread. 

Take out your sourdough double chocolate bread from the hot oven and place it on a cooling rack for two hours before you slice into it. If you cut into it too soon the center of your loaf will become gummy. I know it’s tempting, but it is worth the wait. Most of the time, we are impatient to wait till the bread cools and cut into it right away and end up waiting anyway because it’s way too hot to eat. Be careful; it is very hot! 

Once cooled, slice the loaf using a sharp knife such as this bread knife from Amazon that we love! 

Enjoy this homemade sourdough bread! I hope your household will become as obsessed as we are with this sourdough double chocolate espresso bread! The best way to have leftover sourdough bread is to make thick slices of French toast, then drizzle some warm maple syrup over it!  Or toast it, then slather some cream cheese over it! Oh my, my mouth is watering just thinking about this indulgent bread!