The Fresh Loaf

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Chocolate Goat Cheese Sourdough with Cashews (+Tom’s Alt Altus)

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

Chocolate Goat Cheese Sourdough with Cashews (+Tom’s Alt Altus)

No. You didn’t read it wrong.

It’s goat cheese with milk chocolate. Not in their chucky form but melted into the dough. Confession: I absolutely hate the idea of chocolate cheesecake. I mean, both of them are heavenly food on their own but when combined together? Neither of them can be tasted. Well, to me at least. Many of you would disagree. Still, I’m not changing my mind. Then what’s up with this bread? The thing is, the thought of making chocolate bread came to my mind again yet I didn’t want to include any dried fruits (because I dislike the combo of chocolate and dried fruits as well…). Using nuts only seems a bit boring. Therefore a quick research was conducted and the goat cheese chocolate truffles caught my attention. I figured that the strong flavour of goat cheese might go well with the sweetness of milk chocolate so this bread is born.

 

 

Chocolate Goat Cheese Sourdough with Cashews 

 

Dough flour:

210g      70%       Whole spelt flour

90g        30%       Freshly milled oat flour

 

For leaven:

10g       3.3%       Starter

20g       6.7%       Bran shifted out from dough flour

20g       6.7%       Water

 

For chocolate-goat-cheese mixture:

68g        22.7%      Soft goat cheese  

33g           11%       Milk chocolate

 

For dough:

280g     93.3%       Dough flour excluding bran for leaven

116g     38.7%       Chocolate-goat-cheese mixture

196g     65.3%       Water

49g       16.3%       Whey

50g       16.7%       Leaven

15g           5%       Tom’s Alt Altus, powdered

9g             3%       Vital Wheat Gluten

5g          1.7%       Salt

 

Add-ins:

30g        10%      Toasted Cashews

___________

305g      100%       Whole grain

270g      88.5%      Total hydration (the chocolate-goat-cheese mixture should have added a significant amount of                                                               moisture as well)

 

Shift out the coarse bran from the dough flour, reserve 20g for leaven. Mix the rest back into the dough flour or soak them in equal amount of whey taken from dough ingredients for a minimum of 4 hours.

Combine all leaven ingredients and let sit until doubled, about 6 hours.

Bring a shallow pot of water to a boil. Turn off the heat. Cut the goat cheese and chocolate into small pieces and put them into a bowl covered by cling wrap. Place the bowl into the pot. Put on the lid and let steam until the chocolate and cheese are melted, about 10 minutes. Stir until smooth then set aside until needed.

Roughly combine all dough ingredients. No autolyse since it’s mostly spelt. Let it ferment for 6 hours. 

Fold in the cashews and let the dough rest for 20 minutes. Stretch and fold for a few times and let it rest for 20 more minutes. Shape the dough and put in into a banneton. Leave it on the counter for 20 minutes before retarding for 10 hours.

Take the dough out of the fridge and let it rest on the counter for 30 minutes. At the same time, preheat the oven at 250°C/480°F and pre-steam at the last ten minutes. 

Score the dough and bake at 250°C/480°F with steam for 15 minutes then without steam for 25 minutes more or until the internal temperature reaches a minimum of 205°F. Let cool for at least 2 hours before slicing.

There’s little oven spring as the dough is already fully proofed out of the fridge. The crust is very crackly and has a rather matt colour. I suspect that it has something to do with that uncommon addition of melted goat cheese and chocolate. The scoring is far from perfect but it’s already one of my better scores.

I failed once at making Tom’s Alt Altus: it was burnt completely. This time, the starter dilution was skipped so that I was left with a thicker paste. Also, the oven temperature was turned down to 300°F. And what’s the result? A great success! Thanks Tom for the brilliant idea! It surely added some toastiness and depth to this loaf.

This bread smelled divine when it’s baking. You can definitely taste the goat cheese so it is not one for goat cheese haters. It’s noticeably tangy but with a subtle sweetness from the chocolate. Unexpectedly, this closed-crumb loaf has a very crumby but also a porridge-bread-like texture. It’s something I’ve never had before.

 _______

Some pretzels made with a baked baking soda bath.

Comments

Ru007's picture
Ru007

I would never have thought to put chocolate and goats cheese together. I love chocolate and I like goat cheese so why not put them together and see what happens.

Your loaf looks wonderful as do your pretzels. I'm sure it tasted great too. Goat cheese does go well with sweet things especially in salads. 

By the way, I totally agree with you on the chocolate cheesecake thing, cheesecake should be left alone in its original form!

Nice bake Elsie! I really like your creativity. 

Happy baking 

Ru

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

It's funny that I don't really enjoy goat cheese (though I can still eat it if one forces me to) when it's left plain. However, it becomes one of my favourite cheese when served with honey. I can just say that goat cheese and sugar is a match made in heaven...

Yay! I find someone on my side that agrees chocolate has no place in cheesecake! To me cheesecake is more of a savory kind of dessert (does it make any sense?) and doesn't go well with bitter-sweet chocolate.

Being creative can be cool when my instinct is right, but when I get too excited...not so much :)

Happy baking!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

better be tart if it wasn't for the sweetness of the Kamut.  I can't imagine whAt it tastes like but I DO WANT TO TASTE IT:-)  Very nice indeed. 

Well done and happy baking Elsie

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

thanks to the sweetness of oat, spelt and chocolate. And don't forget the toasty component added by the Alt Altus and toasted cashews! The texture is a bit too crumby for my taste but the crust is awesome: stays super crispy even after cooled.

You can imagine it to taste like a piece of goat cheesecake that is sweet, tangy, savory and toasty all at once. Even the texture resembles cheesecake. Despite its crumbliness, it's velvety smooth and almost melts in your mouth :) 

You can see how much I adore your bran leaven! Not only does it soften the bran, but also contributes to some tartness. Happy baking!

Isand66's picture
Isand66

What a creative combination of flavors.  It's pretty cool that your crumb turned out like a porridge bread crumb.  I'm not a big goat cheese fan but I think in a bread like this it must taste great.  If you want to try a variation, I would skip melting the chocolate and add it in its solid state in pieces so you get some nice chunks of chocolate throughout the dough.

Those pretzels looks great too!

Happy Baking.

Ian

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

Mmmm...Melty chocolate in every bite...how mouth-watering it sounds! The reason why I didn't add chocolate pieces into the bread is that I worried it might overwhelm the goat cheese's flavour. However, it turned out that the goat cheese stole the show completely :) So yeah for sure more chocolate next time!

This is my second time at making pretzels. The first time I tried making it using general baking soda and it had nothing that resembled the pretzel aroma. And then I checked its pH: 8.5 vs lye 13...Of course it won't work! The internet is full of lairs/ people who have no taste buds who told me they produce similar tasting pretzels! This time I used baked baking soda which has a pH of around 11 but the end result was still not comparable to lye pretzels. I want lye pretzels but I can't find any suppliers shipping lye to HK (maybe because it's dangerous good?)!

Thanks for the comment and happy baking!