The Fresh Loaf

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Chocolate Yeast Water levain / rye with cherries & pecans

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

Chocolate Yeast Water levain / rye with cherries & pecans

and orange zest with semi-sweet chocolate chips. I took bits and pieces from TFL posters Shaio Ping and Beatrice as well as Jay on Perfect Sourdough a Facebook bread blogging site. I used his formula with a major twist. I made the levain with AP and cocoa and YW . I added another 100g of YW to the dough . This was a very large batch of dough. A two hour autolyse with everything except add ins. One s&f and an hour later one lamination for add ins. That’s it. No shaping just folded the edges under this the gorgeous free form bursts. The crumb is open and tender and so rich. The loaves were retarded 18-20 hrs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Lovely.

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

it turned out amazingly well. c

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

That looks absolutely scrumptious! Love your hands-off method!

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

it just keeps getting easier. The dough develops itself I just guide the process via temperature and the products used. It’s making me rethink a lot of the formulas I’ve used before. Stretching the brain ?. Thank you for looking.c

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

That looks sooooo good!

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

It is...toasted till just slightly crisp and warmed through topped with almond butter and honey...swoon !  And next will be french toast with a buttermilk/egg batter....it's the best !!! 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Love the combo of ingredients.   I think I've done something similar but certainly didn't add the Cocoa to the levain.  Your crumb looks perfect.  I imagine this would go great with cheese and some nice wine!

Regards,

Ian

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

It is a fantastic bread. I love love the chocolate levain ! I was amazed at how it grew . The beasties love chocolate evidently. Who knew ?  Surprisingly haven't tried it with cheese yet ...wine yes LOL. It makes amazing french toast and regular toast with almond butter and honey is out of this world. I made my YW challah yesterday and it took off !  Such a great rise. All my levains and my YW seem to be very happy these days. 

Hope the new job is going well  . we had snow the other day 3 1/2 inches. More than enough to make it messy . I got up at 3:45 AM and went for a walk in it. Almost beat the snowplows so moved to the isolated areas of town and the park and had a wonderful time. I'm sure you got some white stuff . Happy Baking and may Spring come soon . c

Isand66's picture
Isand66

We had a little snow, but not much.  All melted now.  I'm not a big fan of snow, so not too upset we have had almost no snow this winter. Spring can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned :). 

Job is going well so far, but the commute is long and I"m still not used to earlier routine.  Don't have much time to do anything during the week, so need to fit in baking on my limited time on the weekends.  Your YW Challah sounds awesome too.  I have not made a Challah in a while so may have to give one a try again soon.

Happy Baking!

Ian

Rustic Rye's picture
Rustic Rye

Hi Trailrunner! This looks scrummy! I have wanted to make a chocolate loaf for some time now. Did you happen to write out your method or are you a bread master and had all in your head? haha. If you wrote it out, could you please take a picture of it and reply here? Thank you! :)

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

I’ll look tomorrow when I have time. I’m caring for my two grand babies 28 months and 6 months! I have literally no free time lol! 

I got it from Perfect Sourdough  a person Jay that is an online group. I do have the chocolate levain written down I got that idea from Perfect SD also. I’ll see what I have. It was a great bread

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

you can go from what he has  reported. he is quite a great baker. I used my Apple Yeast Water to make the levain as well as some in the dough. if you don't have a YW you can just make a regular levain. Add about 5% cocoa to the levain in place of some of the flour and a pinch of sugar. Let it rise as usual. Also add cocoa to the bread dough. That really is all there is to it . There are many chocolate SD recipes on TFL if you search. It is easier to search on TFL through Google. The search engine on TFL is awful. Good Luck 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/perfectsourdough/search/?query=Jay%20chocolate%20levain&epa=SEARCH_BOX

Rustic Rye's picture
Rustic Rye

That's really helpful!

Benito's picture
Benito

Does that ever look and sound amazing, beautiful work!

Benny