Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bread Loaf

I love all things chocolate, no doubt about that. :) So if you adore chocolate like me, you have come to the right stop today. :) I have a chocolaty bread recipe to share with you folks, sure to satisfy any chocolate craving you have. Its been awhile since I last baked bread for the family, and what's better then to start it off with a Chocolate Chocolate Chip Loaf, yum! :)

I adapted this recipe from the latest bread recipe book I purchased, "Natural Breads Made Easy" (Chinese is "天然麵面包"). There is a Coffee Bread recipe which I modified it to Chocolate version instead. :) This is one of those that requires pre-fermented dough and leaving it to chill in the fridge up to 17 hours. Please refer to my previous Milk Tea Bread Loaf. :) Curious how good this Chocolate loaf is? Well, here is the modified recipe, try it out if you "dare", hahaha!

Ingredients for Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bread:
Pre-ferment Dough:
469g bread flour
268g water
13g fresh yeast (I used instant active yeast)
7g sea salt (I used table salt)
13g skim milk powder

Dissolve the yeast in water. Add bread flour, sea salt, skim milk powder and knead until soft. Cover the dough in cling wrap or a big zip log bag. Refrigerate to let it prove for 17 hours.

Note: The dough will expand in the fridge. So whatever container you put the dough in, do give some allowance for growth.

Main Dough:
201g bread flour
20g unsweetened cocoa powder
7g sea salt (I used table salt)
70g sugar
80g beaten egg
60ml fresh milk
60g quality milk chocolate melted and cooled
7g fresh yeast (I used instant active yeast)
66g unsalted butter, room temperature

Method:

• Knead all ingredients of the main dough together, except the butter. Add pre-ferment dough piece by piece. Knead after each addition until soft and smooth. Add butter. Knead until stretchable consistency.
  
• Put the dough into a big bowl. Cover with cling wrap and let it prove for 30minutes till double.
• Divide the dough into 6 equal portions. Flatten each portion with your hands to drive the air out. Roll it into square shape, cover and let rest for 20 minutes before shaping.
• Flatten the dough to drive the air out. Roll each out into a rectangular sheet with a rolling pin. Fold about 2cm from both sides towards the center and roll it out again. Roll the dough up like swiss roll (the width should be the same as the tin) and out them into the mould. Repeat for the rest of the dough portions. Cover with cling wrap.
  
• Let it prove for about 45 minutes or until the dough has risen to 80 to 90% of the depth of the loaf tin. You can either cover the lid or bake it open top like mine. If open top, brush with egg wash. Bake in 175C for 30 to 35minutes.

I have actually separate the dough recipe into 2 loaves to bake on separate days. The first loaf was done the very next day after the pre-fermented dough was chilled for 17 hours. While the other portion was used 4 days later...still good! So no worries if you got a little busy and can't make the bread the very next day, the dough will still bake out nicely. :) Cool huh!

The loaf turned out great, easy to knead and also rises pretty fast too. The only mistake I made was to add chocolate chips. :P Why? Because when I slice the loaf, the chocolate get all gooey and stuck onto the knife...not clean cut if you know what I mean.

Once again this method has yield a really soft, tasty and slightly "bouncy" (the Chinese would describe it as Q-Q, heehee) loaf. If you have tasted this, its really hard to go back to those off the shelf store-bought loaves. :P And when it was fresh out of the oven, my little one was really eager to taste it and kept on hurrying me to finish the photo shots, lol! She gobbled up one and half slice!s Yes, she's a choco-lover like me. :D

Okay, hope you folks will try this out and have fun baking it! Have a great week ahead!

Birthday Cakes

It has been quite a busy week for me right after CNY. I got 2 birthday cake orders to fill so I was literally stuck home making birthday cakes and doing house chores the whole time. ;P Frankly speaking, I like it! (not the chores part of course!) I feel honored to take this all important job for making someone's birthday just a little more special. :) The first order came from a neighbor whom has requested me to make birthday cupcakes for her daughter. After some discussion, it was decided on garden theme. So here it is:

If you ask me, this is 60% fun, 40% hardwork. :) I love playing with fondant, so when my neighbor asked for it, I jump to the opportunity! Lol! Even though it does take up time for the moulding, but with proper time planning, everything will fall into place nicely. :) Furthermore, cupcakes are much easier to handle rather then a whole cake. :P

Comparing this with my previous fondant cupcakes for my kid's birthday, this is definitely a much easier one. :) I made the usual chocolate butter cake, piped buttercream tinted with leaf green over it and top off with the fondant "insects", wordings and flowers. :)

I do hope the birthday girl and her friends love these cupcakes. :) Happy Birthday Jade!

The other order I got was from my husband's office. I guess the primary reason why this order came about was from my Root Beer Chocolate Chunk Cake. Apparently the birthday gal loves to drink Coke and so her thoughtful husband took the initiative to order a Coke Chocolate Birthday cake to celebrate her birthday. :)

As I did mention in my previous post, the root beer taste was not evident so I suspected it was gonna to be the same even if I switch it to Coke. Furthermore I had to change the recipe to sponge cake rather then pound cake but still using Coke as the base fluid ingredient. Reason is simple...who uses pound cake for birthday cakes?!

I have adapted the technique "分蛋式海绵蛋糕" from my new cookbook collection; 孟老师的美味蛋糕卷. It is a little different from your usual chiffon method, but supposedly more soft and yet stays fluff without deflating. However since I needed to incorporate Coke into the cake, it got a little more tricky even though I have tried that technique before. Well, a baker's gotta do what a baker's gotta do...just bake!

It's good that the chocolate cake still turned out decant. *phew* However, even though as much Coke as I've added to the recipe, the Cola taste wasn't that evident. :P I even soaked a couple tablespoons of Coke onto each layer of the sponge cake! Oh well, I did what I could, I just hope the birthday girl wasn't too disappointed about it. :P Anyway, hope you have a great birthday celebration! :)

I won't be sharing this recipe since I did modified the original recipe from 孟老师的美味蛋糕卷. I will post up another Swiss roll recipe with this technique soon, so stay tune if you're interested. :)

Okay, thanks for staying on to read my post. But I gotta go now. :P Hope you all have a great remaining week! Cheers~!