Hubbin's Favorite - Sourdough Noir

My husband is a dark chocolate fiend.  I love to throw dinner parties and no matter how lovely my finale dessert may be, he teasingly chides, "if it isn't chocolate, it isn't worth eating."  (Of course, his empty plate and disheveled napkin bear witness to the contrary....)  So, this one is for the Hubbin!!

No fancy flours here...  I figured the chocolate would overwhelm any delicately nuanced grains.  Plus chocolate. So chocolate. And chocolate.  I also had a great (genius!) idea to add a little instant espresso powder to the water (not for coffee flavor so much as chocolate enhancement) and forgot entirely to add it.  So much for great ideas.  Oh well.  Much to my husband's delight - I will have to try again!  Here's the set up: 

800g KAF Bread flour

200g KAF Artisan BF

100g Dutch process cocoa

100g sugar

10 once bag of dark chocolate chunks 

dried cherries soaked in hot water - eyeballed about 1.25 c.

toasted pecan halves - eyeballed 1.5-2 cups (cooled before mixing in; not chopped)

275g 50/50 WW/APF starter at about 85% hydration

16g fine sea salt

700g water - plus a few dribbles of the soaker water

Mix 700g water, sugar, flours, cocoa. Autolyse for 1.5-2 hours. (This autolyse time was based on going out to run errands -- if I'd been home, I imagine I would have done a 60 min autolyse.)  Add starter, salt, splash of cherry soaker water (probably 3 TBL), chocolate, cherries and nuts.  I coulda shoulda waited to add the fruit/choc/nuts until after a stretch and fold or 2, but the dough was fairly structured from the start b/c (I think) of the high percentage of protein in KAF bread flour (12.7%) (KAF Artisan BF is only 4%; almost as low as APF).  Anyway, in they went.  I did only 3 stretch and folds at 45 min; 37 min; 30 min (no design there...life just happens, including having to chase my dog out of our non-dog-loving neighbor's yard).  I completed the bulk ferment in the fridge for another 3.5 hours while we attended a wedding rehearsal. I pre-shaped and let rest for 20 minutes; shaped into 2 loaves and proofed on the counter for only 1 hour and 15 minutes. I typically do an overnight fridge proof, but The Hubbin HAD to have this for breakfast and I am nothing if not a dutiful wife (insert women's college sarcasm here).  So, in they went to the roaring fire.  Preheated for 90 minutes at 500.  I turned the oven to 450 when they went in.  So 450 for 35 minutes; tops off cookers & reduce to 425 for 12 minutes; door ajar for another 8-10 minutes. I probably could have proofed for another 30 minutes as the whopper oven spring attests.  

The reviews at 7am this morning: "Mmm. Chocolate.  Mmm.  Gooood.  Yes."