More sourdough bread recipes! This loaf is sweet and savory – the perfect way to enjoy sweets while having substance. This is the same process and recipe as my original sourdough recipe but with the addition of cocoa powder and chocolate chips!

Here are some important notes about baking sourdough/alternatives for the necessary tools:

Dutch oven alternative:

1. Use a large oven safe stock pot with a lid! It works the same exact way. Or…
2. When you preheat your oven, put a cookie sheet on the bottom shelf. Bake your bread in some kind of pot/pan that helps it hold its shape. When you put the bread into the oven, put water or ice cubes on the pan on the bottom shelf. Close the oven up quick, and you have a steamy oven!

Banneton alternative:

1. Put a non-shedding towel in a colander and dust it with (a decent amount) of flour. Then put your dough in that for its final rise. Or…
2. Just dust any bowl with flour!

Now, time to bake!

Ingredients

This recipe will take about 8-12 hours to complete, but don’t worry, it is probably less than 30 minutes of active participation.

I work in grams when I baking, using the cheapest scale amazon had to offer, but I will do some approximate conversions for anyone who doesn’t have a scale.

• 300g (1 cup) of Sourdough starter
• 300g (1-1/4 cups) of luke-warm water
• 400g (2-1/2 cups) of bread flour
• 12g (3 tsp) of salt
• 40g (3/8 cup) of Cocoa Powder

Added in a later step:

• 80g (1/2 cup) of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Mix the starter, water, flour, salt, and cocoa powder together in a bowl with your hands or a spatula. Try to not let the salt land directly on the starter before mixing. This is just good practice because salt can kill yeast.

Kneading the Dough

Once the dough is mixed, let it sit in the bowl, covered, for 30 minutes (ish).

Next, you will start the folding process. I fold my dough (see video below for an example of dough folding) every 30-45 minutes for the first 3 hours after I mix it (4-6 times)

The chocolate chips will get added into the dough during the 3rd fold. This way the bread has formed enough of a gluten structure and you will continue folding the chocolate chips into the dough with the next folds.

The initial mixture is a very hydrated dough. It is very hard to knead, but that hydration gives the big holes that everyone loves in the sourdough. Folding the dough creates the gluten structure that holds the dough together while it rises. You will end up with a less dense roll the more you fold it.

My kneading steps

1. Mix the ingredients, let sit for 30 minutes
2. Fold the dough, re-cover, and let sit for 30-45 minutes
3. On the 3rd fold, add in the chocolate chips
4. Repeat step two 3-5 more times

That is it!

Letting the Dough Rise

After you are done kneading the dough, let it rise in your bowl, covered, for 3-5 more hours. You do not need to touch it, just put it on top of your fridge and set a timer.

After the first rise is done, you will transfer your dough into your floured banneton (or banneton substitute) and cover it again. Before I cover it, I generally apply some olive oil spray on top just so it doesn’t stick to anything.

Then, let it rise on the fridge again for 2-4 more hours! I usually just base it on what time I need to go to bed/how it has rose until that point.

Baking the Dough

Preheat your oven to 420°. It is nice to preheat your oven for 30 minutes – 1 hour before baking, but you can just preheat it normally too.

This is where the dutch oven, or dutch oven alternatives, come in. I usually bake my loaf on a piece of parchment paper too, because I don’t love the mega crisp on the bottom of my loaf.

Baking steps

1. Transfer your dough from the banneton into your dutch oven. This is where you score the top of it. This is just cutting the top of it allowing the dough to rise. Put the lid on if applicable.
2. Bake at 420° for 30 minutes.
3. Take the lid off (or remove the steam tray from the oven), and continue baking the loaf for 25 minutes.
4. Voila! You are done

Let your loaf cool for an hour at least before cutting into it.

**Note** I bake this sourdough loaf at a lower temperature than my original sourdough loaf and the timing is a bit different. This is because of the extra sugar added make it burn more easily and because it is a more dense loaf with the cocoa added.

Let us know how you like the sweet sourdough loaf you created!

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