Chocolate and Coffee Sourdough Bread

Valentine's Day is close, so this time a sourdough made with chocolate. And wanting a little more going on in the flavour, I added coffee to the chocolate as well.

Step 1 — Preparing the sourdough starter

I have baked a coffee sourdough before; this time I want to work cocoa powder in as well. Not only coffee and cocoa in the dough, but coffee and cocoa in the starter too, to push the flavour further forward.

Ingredients:

• Starter30g
• Bread flour (Kitanokaori)30g
• Cocoa powder1 tsp
• Iced coffee30cc

Conditions:

• Date7 February 2022
• Room temperature22℃
• Humidity40%

1. To 30g of starter, add 30g of bread flour, 1 tsp of cocoa powder and 30cc of iced coffee, and mix well.

For the starter, this time I am using my bread flour starter. As long as it is reasonably lively the quantities can be approximate. Aim for the new coffee and flour together to come to slightly more than the starter, and for the whole thing to give you enough for one bake — here, at least 60g.

2. Leave it at room temperature.

How fast it rises depends on temperature and humidity, but normally bubbles appear on the surface within one to two hours and it roughly doubles after several. In winter the room is colder and fermentation takes longer; this time I left it about five hours. It also seemed slower than feeding a starter with plain water.

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Step 2 — Making the dough

This was largely made up as I went, so I have no idea whether it is the right way to do it. The smell of chocolate makes you expect sweetness, so I added sugar, which I normally never do. The other big departure from an ordinary sourdough is that iced coffee replaces the water in the dough, and this time I added a little milk as well. The order changes depending on when you fold in the starter from step 1; here I mixed everything together at once.

Ingredients:

• Starter60g
• Bread flour (Kitanokaori)250g
• Iced coffee160cc
• Sugar3 tbsp
• Cocoa powder1 tbsp
• Milk10cc
• Salt4g

Bread flour and cocoa; iced coffee and starter

1. Put 250g of bread flour and 1 tbsp of cocoa powder in a bowl and mix well. Cocoa is finer than flour and clumps easily, so break up any lumps and distribute it evenly.

2. Mix 10cc of milk into 160cc of iced coffee. Add 60g of the starter from step 1, 3 tbsp of sugar and 4g of salt, and stir until dissolved.

Bringing the dry and wet together

3. Add all of mixture 2 — the coffee, milk and starter — to the bowl of flour and cocoa in one go. Start with the scraper, turning it over from the bottom of the bowl. Once it starts coming together, use your hands to gather it into a single mass. If there is one thing to watch, it is not overworking it. Think of combining the ingredients rather than kneading them.

4. Once it has come together, cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour.

Stretch and fold

5. The first stretch and fold. It is exactly what it sounds like: stretch, then fold. Working around the round of dough, stretch and fold it roughly six to eight times. Not kneading — stretching gently and folding. That is the point.

6. Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for one to two hours.

7. The second stretch and fold. The dough has begun to rise, so work more gently than the first time to avoid knocking the air out of it. This time, four to six stretches and folds.

8. Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for two to three hours.

Shaping the dough

9. Using the scraper, ease the dough gently out of the bowl onto a floured surface. Flatten it lightly into a rough square, fold it in from all four sides, shape it loosely, and let it rest for 30 to 60 minutes.

10. Finally, stretch and fold about four more times to build tension across the surface, and shape it into an oval. Dust the top with flour and place it in a cloth-lined banneton — turning it over, so the floured surface sits at the bottom of the basket.

11. The final proof. Three to five hours at room temperature, or overnight in the fridge, should roughly double it. Press the dough lightly with the pad of a finger: if it springs back with some tension, it is ready.

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Step 3 — Baking

What you need:

• Dutch oven (220mm internal diameter, 100mm deep)
• Baking paper
• Razor blade

1. Put the Dutch oven in the oven and preheat to 250°C.

2. Once it is up to temperature, turn the dough out of the basket onto a sheet of baking paper.

3. Score the top with the razor.

4. Take out the Dutch oven, lower the dough in on its paper, put the lid on, and bake at 230°C for 20 minutes.

5. Take the lid off and bake at 240°C for a further 8 minutes.

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How it turned out

So: coffee instead of water, plus a little milk. Honestly there was no dramatic difference. With the coffee, the milk and the cocoa there is more fat in the dough, and fermentation did seem slightly slower for it.

As for eating it: very good indeed. Crisp outside, soft and chewy inside. The faint bitterness of coffee and cacao builds as you chew, and honestly I would happily eat this at any time of year, Valentine's Day or not. Do give this chocolate and coffee sourdough a try.

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The coffee I used here is this one.

Pride of Kenya, New Irati AB, 200g