Preston Hill Bakery Chocolate Bread from ‘Theo Chocolate’
This week we’re taking a break from healthy recipes to focus on one of our favorite, anti-oxidant rich ingredients: chocolate. Below, we’ve chosen an excerpt from Theo Chocolate: Recipes & Sweet Secrets from Seattle’s Favorite Chocolate Maker Featuring 75 Recipes Both Sweet & Savoryby Debra Music and Joe Whinney (Sasquatch Books), which focuses on decadent treats perfect for this time of year. Try making the recipes at home and let us know what you think!
Photograph by Charity Burggraaf
Preston Hill Bakery Chocolate Bread
Makes 2 Small (10-ounce) loaves
This dark, chewy, intensely bittersweet bread is always among the first to sell out at Preston Hill Bakery’s stand at farmers’ markets in the Seattle area. Alex Williams is the man who does everything from mixing the doughs and baking the breads to bringing them to market and selling them, and he very kindly shared his recipe with us. We love that Alex uses organic, whole grain flours, and that he bakes his breads in an outdoor wood-fired bread oven he built himself. Alex worked for years as an architect, until he brought his creativity and love of good food to bread baking.
Even though we bake his chocolate bread in a boring old regular oven, it’s still stupendous. The perfect accompaniment to a big mug of steaming coffee or a milky latte, it’s just as good for breakfast as for a midafternoon or late-night snack. Though stuffed with bits, chunks, and shards of chocolate, the bread itself isn’t sweet at all. If it lasts beyond a day or two (which is highly unlikely unless you double the recipe), it makes incredible toast—crispy on the outside, moist and warm inside, and all those bits of chocolate turn molten. Honestly, we have no idea why you’re still reading this when you could be baking!
? cup plus 2 tablespoons (4 ounces) organic whole wheat bread flour, divided, plus more for dusting
? cup plus 2 tablespoons (4 ounces) organic white bread flour, divided
1 cup very warm water
1 tablespoon ( ? ounce) extra-dark cocoa powder
1 teaspoon dry instant yeast
? teaspoon xanthan gum (see note)
? teaspoon kosher salt
3? ounces Theo 70 percent dark chocolate, chopped unevenly
1? ounces Theo 45 percent milk chocolate, chopped unevenly
Put ? cup of each bread flour in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Stir in the water. Cover and let sit for 45 minutes to activate the gluten.
Add the cocoa powder, yeast, and xanthan gum, and mix for about 1 minute at medium speed. Add the salt and mix at medium speed for another minute. Add about a tablespoon of each kind of flour and mix on medium-high speed for about 2 minutes. The dough will be sticky and should form a ball around the hook with almost all the dough. If it doesn’t, add another tablespoon of each kind of flour and mix again at medium-high speed for another 2 minutes. Add both chocolates in three additions, mixing for about 30 seconds between additions. If the dough hasn’t already come together, it will once you’ve started adding the chocolate.
Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl (it will be sticky—that’s OK!), cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise until at least doubled, about 45 minutes.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a dough scraper or plastic spatula to cut the ball of dough in half. Use the scraper to lift half the dough from the bowl and place it on one side of the baking sheet, tucking it into a ball as much as you can (don’t worry too much—even if you can’t get it into a neat ball now, it magically bakes up quite beautifully). Repeat with the other half of the dough. Lightly dust the top of the loaves with flour and cover them loosely with a piece of plastic wrap. Let them rise until almost doubled, 30 to 45 minutes.
When the dough has almost doubled, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bake the breads for about 30 minutes, until they feel firm and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom, or until the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees F (a probe thermometer works well). Let the breads cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Note: Xanthan gum is usually used as a gluten replacement, but here it improves the texture of the crumb. It can be found in the gluten-free section of most well-stocked supermarkets or purchased online.
Reprinted with permission from Theo Chocolate: Recipes & Sweet Secrets from Seattle’s Favorite Chocolate Maker Featuring 75 Recipes Both Sweet & Savory by Debra Music and Joe Whinney (Sasquatch Books).
More fresh loaves to bake at home:
‘Les Miserables’ Black Rye Bread Recipe From ‘Yummy Books’
The Bread That Will Change Your Whole World
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