Strawberry white chocolate sourdough bread

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This strawberry white chocolate sourdough bread is heavenly! It’s a dessert sourdough recipe that is a must-try. It is a delightful flavor combination paired with the tangy sourdough. 

Baking sourdough bread has become a staple in our household. This recipe uses my basic sourdough loaf recipe but with added inclusions such as white chocolate strawberry sourdough bread. Once you start making sourdough bread from scratch, you will NEVER return to eating yeast bread. 

HERE IS A LIST OF SOURDOUGH LOAVES WITH INCLUSIONS WORTH TRYING:

• Double chocolate espresso sourdough bread
• Chia seeds sourdough loaf
• sourdough cinnamon brown sugar raisins bread
• Simple white sourdough bread full recipe
• Pumpkin-shaped sourdough loaf
• Cheesy sourdough pull-apart bread
• Cheddar jalapeno sourdough bread

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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.

• Food 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
• parchment paper
• lame– for scoring the loaf
• 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.
• banneton basket (proofing basket)
• shower cap– to cover the dough
• dough whisk

INGREDIENTS FOR STRAWBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE SOURDOUGH  BREAD

• 500 grams of bread Flour – (you can use all-purpose flour, but I prefer bread flour)
• 325 grams of filtered  room temperature water
• 10 grams salt
• 100 grams active sourdough starter (fed in the last 12 hours)
• 30 grams sugar 
• 30 grams freeze-dried strawberries
• 5 oz white chocolate chips (half a bag)- you can also use semi-sweet chocolate chips

What kind of chocolate can you use?

Any white chocolate chunks you would like! You can use white chocolate brick cut into shavings, even dark chocolate chips, and milk chocolate chips; the possibilities are endless. Have fun with it!

Can you use fresh strawberries?

You can! Although it will change the consistency of the dough a little. The dough will become slightly wetter because of the juice from the sweet strawberries. I made a sourdough loaf with frozen berries once, which turned out wonderful! You don’t need to change the amount of ingredients to accommodate the fresh strawberries. 

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.

STRAWBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE  SOURDOUGH BREAD RECIPE

Place a large mixing bowl on the food scale, zero it to grams, add active starter and warm water, then mix it using a bread whisk until the water becomes milky and the starter has dissolved. Next, add in the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, and salt). Zero out the food scale after each ingredient for an accurate reading. Give this a good mix using your hands or a dough whisk. You don’t want to knead the dough; you need to combine all the ingredients till there are no dry streaks of flour. The dough will be very sticky, and 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

 Wet your hands to keep the sourdough from sticking to your hands while doing the next step. Stretch and fold the sourdough..

 Perform three series of stretch and folds for the sourdough, adding the white chocolate chips and freeze-dried strawberries between each stretch and fold until 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 white chocolate chips and strawberries 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 45-minute rest in between each set. You should see the dough rise and become bubbly in between each set. 

(After the last stretch and fold, cover the dough and let it rest for 1 hour) The strawberry white chocolate sourdough bread 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 turn over the bowl with the dough and let the sourdough gently fall out on a clean work surface. 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 the dough rest for 10 minutes. This step will ensure that your dough relaxes, making it easier to stretch it for the next step. 

Use your hands to stretch the dough out into a rectangle gently, do not use a rolling pin as it will disturb the bubbles forming in the dough. It might be a little sticky, but make sure not to add any additional flour. If the sourdough is too sticky to work with, use a dough scraper to help. You dont need to stretch the dough out too thin, about 1 inch thick. 

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 yourself in a circular motion 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. Make a quarter turn with the loaf, then cup your hands against it 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 strawberry white chocolate sourdough loaf 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 STRAWBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE SOURDOUGH BREAD

Place a Dutch oven into the oven with the lid closed the next day and preheat the oven to 450F

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 strawberry white 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. Place an empty baking pan underneath the Dutch oven to prevent it from burning from the bottom.

Remove the lid from the Dutch oven, and bake for 3-10 minutes or until it reaches your desired crust (golden brown). Depending on the color you want on your strawberry white chocolate sourdough bread to be. 

Take out the bread from the hot oven and place it on a cooling wire 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 white chocolate chip loaf! 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 with strawberry jam! Oh my, my mouth is watering just thinking about this indulgent bread! This will easily become your favorite sourdough recipe 🙂