Chocolate Cherry Sourdough
A beautiful loaf of bread that is no-too-sweet and full of chocolate flavor. The chocolate and dried cherries a prominent in every slice.
Ingredients
- 230 grams sourdough starter, ripe or discard (1 cup +1 T)
- 185 grams warm water 3/4 cup
- 4 grams instant yeast 1 tsp.
- 225 grams bread flour 1 2/3 cup
- 30 grams cocoa powder 1/4 cup
- 1 tsp espresso powder
- 7 grams salt
- 150 grams dark chocolate chips or small chunks 1 cup
- 100 grams dried cherries, sweetened or unsweetened 1 cup
Instructions
- In a large bowl by hand or by mixer with dough hook, mix the sourdough starter, warm water and yeast together. Add the bread flour, cocoa powder and espresso powder. Combine until it is a big shaggy ball. Cover and sit for 30 minutes.
- Add the salt. Once incorporated well, move this dough to an oiled bowl that you can cover. Cover and rest 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, fold the dough four times. Rest 30 minutes. Add the chocolate chips and dried cherries. Be sure to break up the dried cherries first since they tend to stick together. Fold and rest 30 minutes.
- Fold and rest for 30 minutes FOUR more times. So this is SIX folds. Rest again 30 minutes after the last fold. This is to develop gluten. My windowpane test failed...but I think the bread still turned out well!
- Now you can leave it as one loaf or divide into 2 right now. Cover well (it still has the folds/seam side up) and put the dough into the refrigerator for 14 hours. Yes, I said fourteen hours. That is not a typo.
- Now, place a piece of parchment into your Dutch Oven. Gently flip the dough over into the Dutch Oven with rounded side UP. Put the lid on and allow to come up to room temperature for 1-2 hours.
- Towards the end of the time is up, preheat oven to 500 degrees. Score the top of your sourdough with a knife. This should be 1/4"-1/2" on top in the shape of a cross or hashtag.
- Put the Dutch Oven COVERED into the middle of the oven or upper rack (as far up as possible) and DROP the tempreature to 450 degrees.
- Bake at 450 degrees for 33 minutes.
- Remove lid and bake 5 minutes.
- Crack open the oven door and bake another 5 minutes.
- Remove Dutch Oven from the oven. Gently and carefully lift the parchment paper and bread onto a wire rack. Allow to cool. If that's even possible. I think I ate half before I allowed it to cool. :-)
- Enjoy by itself or with butter. Once completely cool, store at room tempreature in a sealed plastic bag.
Notes
Recipe adapted from Modernist Bread. All measurements were done by WEIGHT. I only gave the volume measurements so that we have an idea of how much starter, cocoa etc. that you need to have on hand to make the bread. Starter can have the same weight and vary between 1 cup and 3 cups, so it is super important to weigh it.
I used sweetened dried cherries because that is all they sell here where I live.
I used King Arthur Bread Flour.
I used Rodelle Dutch-processed baking cocoa. You can use natural cocoa.