Catfish Out of Water

The other day I made Chocolate Bread for a little Halloweeny ladies brunch. I found an article on substituting 10% flour for cocoa powder in bread recipes (King Arthur Baking Company's How to Give Any Bread a Chocolate Makeover). Which worked out really well! So, I thought that this time I would try adding in chocolate chips. They added in 15%, but determined that that was too few. With a somewhere between 15-100% chocolate chips, I ended up just tossing the entire back of chocolate chips in. How bad could it be? I don't know. I don't have any frame of reference for baking chocolate chips into bread!

My go-to bread is No-knead Dutch Oven Bread. I've made it a couple dozen times over the years and am pretty confident with it at this point. Plus, the first batch without the chocolate chips went much better than expected. So, I figured that I'd just go for broke and see what the maximum number of chocolate chips is. I would wager that it was a bit much because the inside kind of had the consistency of fruit cake.

I'll probably try it again with slightly less chocolate chips. I'm thinking that there's probably a sweet spot somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 of a bag. I'll usually post follow-up batches when I make a recipe more than once. I like being able to see how the changes in rise affect the final product. I have a tendency to over proof dough more than I under proof it, so being able to see which rise produced the best bread is helpful. Or, apparently, if I do something silly like dump an entire batch of chocolate chips into a single loaf of bread!

Gallery

This bowl is very obviously way overfilled. It's the only mixing bowl that I'm not already using or left at someone else's house and never retrieved. So, it was either track down one of the 3 bowls that I've abandoned, figure out how to get rid of a bowl in my fridge, or just make the tiny bowl work. I ended up mixing half of it at a time and making it work. But I'd recommend a much larger bowl. Don't do this if you don't have to! This would not work if this weren't a no-knead recipe. Barely mixed is what we've got here.

I was also worried that this would stick to the basket and stain it. So, I put an unseemly amount of flour. This person tried putting in 15% chocolate and decided that that wasn't enough. I put in an entire pack. It worked out. Which is exciting because there's always the chance that adding another ingredient can interfere with the rise. Although, apparently, 11.5 ounces of rather large chocolate chips did not turn those scales.

I also took this loaf of bread to ladies craft night. So, the final photos were taken in the dark at night. I might brighten them up at some point. I might just make the recipe again. Either way, I'll update you when I do!

Variations of Chocolate Chips Bread

I don't always make bread with chocolate chips in it, but I'm not a stranger to putting things in bread! I wouldn't ordinarily recommend making too many changes to a bread recipe. It ordinarily requires a fair bit of math and figuring out ratios. This is easier to do if you put it into a spreadsheet and then multiply out percentages. But, there is also a slight amount of wiggle room to play around with before the whole thing collapses.

The Fundamentals of No-knead Dutch Oven Bread

No-knead Dutch Oven Chocolate Bread w/ Cocoa Powder

Black Rolls w/ Squid Ink

No-knead Dutch Oven Bread w/ Cocoa Powder & Chocolate Chips

This is a true Chocolate Chips Bread (not a sugar-laden cake) with warm water, yeast, honey, all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, and a pinch of salt.

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 45 minutes mins

Proof Time 2 hours hrs

Total Time 3 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Course Side Dish

Cuisine Italian

Servings 1 loaf

Equipment

• Large Bowl
• Dutch Oven
• Oven

Ingredients

  

• 472 ml. warm water ~100°F 2 c.
• 7 g. instant yeast 2 ¼ tsp. or 1 package
• 7 g. honey or 2 tsp. granulated sugar, maple syrup, or brown sugar
• 513 g. all-purpose flour 4⅛ c.
• 57 g. cocoa powder
• 11.5 g. chocolate chips
• 2 tsp. salt

Instructions

 

Dough

• Combine warm water, yeast, and sugar (or honey). Let rest for 15 minutes, or until the yeast begins to bubble.
• Meanwhile, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, and salt in a large bowl.
• After the yeast has proofed, stir yeast mixture into the flour. Mix until all of the ingredients are combined.

  In a mixer with a dough hook attachment, this only takes a minute or two. By hand, this takes about 5 minutes. It's a no-knead bread recipe, so you're not necessarily looking for soft and pliable dough. Really, you just want all of the ingredients to be mixed thoroughly at this point! Which does make it a great recipe to make by hand if you prefer or don't have a mixer.
• Lightly coat the chocolate chips in flour and fold into the dough.
• Cover the dough and let proof for 2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Bake

• A half hour before the dough is through its proof, lightly grease the Dutch oven. Place it, with the lid on, in the oven and preheat to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

  It's important to preheat the Dutch oven ahead of time in order to get it warm enough to cook the bread.
• After 2 hours of proofing, lightly flour a surface and turn the dough out. Sprinkle with just enough flour to make it workable (a tablespoon or two) and fold the dough onto itself several times, until you've created a ball.
• If you're separating the dough to maker smaller loaves, do that at this time.
• Carefully, and with oven mitts, remove the Dutch oven. Plop the ball of dough into the center of the Dutch oven.
• Using oven mitts, place the lid back on and put the Dutch oven back into the oven. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

  Baking time for different sized loaves remains the same. This sounds counter-intuitive, but don't open up the Dutch oven to double check! The bread bakes in a similar amount of time regardless of loaf size because of the Dutch oven within an oven baking method. Smaller loaves may need less, or no, additional cook time after the lid is removed. But the initial bake time remains the same.
• After 45 minutes in the oven, remove the lid from the Dutch oven and bake for another 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is crisp and golden brown.

  You should be able to tap on the dough and it sounds hollow.
• After about an hour in the oven, carefully remove the Dutch oven and turn out the bread. Let rest until cool before slicing. This tends to take about 30-45 minutes.

Tips, Tricks, & Notes

• You can use any kind of sugar that you want. The original recipe called for maple syrup or honey. But I'm honestly not as big a fan of those in bread! It goes great with butter and toast and I'm a huge fan in biscuits. But this isn't necessarily something that I'm always going for with every slice of bread.
• If you don't want to predetermine the flavor profile, white granulated sugar is a great choice. I've been using honey lately because there's a bottle on my counter. But again, this is all personal preference! Sugar is necessary to feed the yeast and help the dough rise throughout hours of proofing. The particular sugar that you use in this recipe, though, is personal preference. Use whatever sugar you prefer or have on hand!
• You can use any cocoa powder that you want. Unsweetened, raw cocoa varieties are going to result in a richer taste. Whereas sweeter (more like hot cocoa mix) are going to be sweeter and a little bit more subtle. If you use a sugar-free cocoa powder, this recipe still isn't healthy because we're talking about bread here, but it's not a dessert item that more resembles a cake. It's just a more fun bread rather than a cake masquerading as bread!
• This recipe is also vegan if you use sugar, instead of honey, and a dark chocolate cocoa powder and chocolate chips without dairy in it. I used Guittard Milk Chocolate Baking Chips because they're very large and fun to bake with. But just check the ingredients on your brand if you want it to be vegan!