Due to a request on another forum, I figured I'd do a posting on chocolate. As an ingredient, it has a lot of potential, especially when combined with your favorite bread recipes. I've made chocolate madeleines, cakes, cookies, croissants, breads and even pasta, with very little modification to the original recipe. I think a basic understanding of chocolate can go a long way towards using it succesfully in your baking. Here's a bit of a primer to get you started http://jeremyskitchen.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/chocolate/

I realize it's not specific to bread, but I just wrote a review of “The Chocolate Cake Sutra” by Geri Larkin here: http://jeremyskitchen.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/the-chocolate-cake-sutra/ It's pretty brief, but I figured anyone interested in pastry and baking in general might like it. Note: don't buy this book until you've had a chance to look at a copy of it. It's not really a cookbook, so much as a social commentary.

I had made some hot chocolate and stored the leftover in the refridgerator. When I poured off the liquid, I noticed a chocolately sludge on the bottom. As the chocolate was a bit too intense when first made, I decide not to stir up the sludge, but to save it and add it to some bread.

I've been baking Floyd's daily bread for months now, having graduated from no-knead bread. I don't have a scale, so I measure, then add flour or liquid as needed until the dough feels right. In this case, I made the poolish with white bread flour, left it overnight, and the next morning, added 4 more cups white flour, and then one cup of liquid: chocolate sludge plus 2 eggs plus a bit of milk to fill it out. The dough was dry, so I added more water. I kneaded more than usual, to add the water. The Kitchenaid mixer chugged and chugged.

It wasn't until the bread was rising in an oiled bowl that I realized that I had completely forgotten the extra teaspoon of yeast and the two teaspoons of salt specified in the recipe. So that's why the bread was rising so slowly! I was sure it was doomed.

It rose slowly, but gained enthusiasm as it rose. After a few hours, it was wonderfully soft and pliable. I folded twice, then formed boules, let them rise, slashed them, and baked them in a pre-heated, pre-steamed oven.

They don't taste chocolate-ish, or sweet, but they're otherwise perfect. In fact, they're better than my usual loaves. They are softer, moister, and had incredible oven spring. My usual loaves tend towards the tasty but flat. Barely any oven spring at all.

I wish I had a digital camera and could post a picture.

So what made the difference? More kneading than usual? The lack of salt to retard the yeast? Forgetting the extra yeast but giving the bread more time? The sugar in the hot chocolate sludge?

Please advise. I'd like my usual loaves to be this spectacular!

Last week's experiment with Doppelbock came out so well that I decided to graduate to Porter, which my friend's website (http://www.lightningbrewery.com/) describes as having, "intensely rich malt aromas with strong notes of chocolate and coffee," the result of his using 9 different malts and a generous portion of hops. This is beer that you can almost chew.

I recently did a post, here http://jeremyskitchen.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/practice-practice-practice/ , on the importance of practicing a recipe over and over until it becomes second nature. I'm putting it in the pastry section because that's what the post is about, however I believe the same applies for breads, cakes, cookies and savoury dishes. Only by repitition can you get to know the intricacies of a recipe.

I think these cookies are really wonderful

Ingredients

3 oz. (3 squares, 85 g) unsweetened chocolate

1 lb. (454 g) sifted confectioners’ sugar

1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract

My sweet bread-loving best friend suffered a heart attack last year, and since then I've been searching for and experimenting with lower-fat, healthy versions of his favourite recipes.  This incredibly easy moist, delicious loaf, adapted from Bonnie Stern's Best of HeartSmart Cooking is not only lower in fat, but what fat it contains is mono or polyunsaturated, which boosts HDL (good) cholesterol. 

Chocolate Sourdough

Here is a picture of the Cholocate Chip Sourdough I tried last week. It didn't come out exactly as I'd hoped, but it is was still pretty good. I mean, c'mon.... chocolate.... sourdough... how can you go wrong?

A professional baker acquaintance of mine recommended that I work with more 100% white flour doughs for practicing my hand-shaping skills.  White bread always reminds me a little bit of candy, and I happened to have on the counter some cacao nibs from garnishing the previous night's hot chocolate: hence, Cacao Nib Sourdough Bread.

Preferment: 140g KA white AP flour; 84g water.  Target 60% hydration

Soaker: 15g roasted cacao nibs (Scharffen Berger brand), crushed lightly in a mortar;  20g water