Chocolate and chilli loaf..

Let me tell you the story of this huge and beautiful loaf…

For this dough I used my ‘same day’ process as I planned to make and bake the dough within the same day. That meant I used 100g starter instead of my usual 50g, (see ingredients details below) and I mixed the dough up mid morning. I left it in my kitchen to do it’s thing, when really I should have put it in a warm space as per my same day process in my books, but I didn’t, I left it on the counter.

As it was cold, as the day went on the dough didn’t really do much, so I took a risk and left it out all night in addition to the time it had on the counter all day. It was so cold I decided it was worth a go…and luckily, it worked! This is what I woke up to…

A HUGE beautiful dough! And a beautifully structured dough too.

Due to the cold weather this dough had proved for around 18 hours in total and remained perfectly intact and ready to bake into a great loaf. The chilli give it a nice hit of heat and the chocolate adds a richness and brings out the chilli flavour nicely.

NOTE: Below are the ingredients I used, the mixture of the sugars in the chocolate and the oat milk, the added starter and the chilli all added to produce this beautiful dough which baked into such a big loaf it hit the top of my pan, as you can see by the slight dip in the top of the loaf in the first photo.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend using this much starter typically unless you can watch the dough or manage the time and temperature. If I make this again I will use my usual 50g starter and my usual timings.

Ingredients

100g starter/50g starter

350g oat milk/400g oat milk (or milk of your choice)

500g strong white bread flour

50g grated/flakes 80% dark chocolate (use your own choice of chocolate)

30g pul biber/Aleppo chilli flakes (these are quite mild, and gives the loaf a nice heat, if you want more of a kick, use a stronger ground chilli powder/chilli flakes)

Salt to taste

Method

Follow my master recipe or use the same day process in either of my books.

Enjoy!

To answer the questions that came up when I shared this dough: this dough is not over proved. If it was over it would have collapsed and been bubbly and hard to handle; this was a perfectly proved well structured dough.

16 thoughts on “Chocolate and chilli loaf..”

  1. When you found your dough was beautifully risen next morning, what were your next steps? Did you just pop it in the oven right then or did you follow the usual procedure of moulding it, into banneton, letting it rise again…………..?
    Love to know. :))

  2. Hi, I followed my usual next steps, into the banneton and the fridge, and baked it later 👍🏻

  3. I am trying this for sure – I love dark chocolate and I love chillies so for me this is a perfect combo. Thank you for the inspo! 💜

  4. Hi
    How long did you let it proof for? And then how long did it go into fermentation? How long did you bake it for and at what temperature?

  5. Ok so i just made this loaf with all purpose Einkorn flour it has a beautiful rise to it. What are the next steps after you proofed it? and how long did you bake it for?

    Thank you,
    Christina

  6. Hi, if you’d like to read my master recipe process it shows how I made and proved the dough: https://foodbodsourdough.com/the-process/

    I then used the sandwich loaf process from my books: I placed the dough into the loaf tin, let it prove again and baked at 200C fan for 45 mins from a cold start.

  7. Hi, that sounds good! I used the sandwich loaf process from my books: I placed the dough into the loaf tin, let it prove again and baked at 200C fan for 45 mins from a cold start.

  8. This recipe is the perfect mix of sweet and heat! A wonderful treat♥️

  9. I am making this now and I can see it’s going to take a while but I’m sure it’s going to be delicious. I don’t have those chilli flakes so I used two dried birds eye chillies. I put 100g of spelt flour in and my starter is rye.
    I’m making it for my birthday because for my birthday i can make any bread I want and hubby doesn’t like it so it’s all for me.

  10. I will be making this recipe again Elaine! We loved it so much! A must to add on my menu! So ever grateful.

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