Whole Wheat Chocolate Bread

This bread is garnished with chocolate, hazelnuts, and porridge. You will learn the best techniques to work the dough and incorporate the ingredients. There are only a few ingredients needed but techniques and timing are very important to achieve a great result.

Recipe

  1. Porridge
  2. Bread Dough
  3. Shaping
  4. Baking

Porridge

ingredients preparation
  • 210g
    water
  • 70g
    oat flakes
  1. Pour the water into a saucepan and bring to the boil.
  2. Once boiling, add the oat flakes. Mix well and cook over to very low heat for 15 minutes.
  3. The porridge should hold well together and be almost gelatinous. If it is not gelatinous, it will change your bread’s hydratation. You might end up with too much water in the bread.
  4. Once ready, let it cool down.

Bread Dough

ingredients preparation
  • 460g
    whole wheat flour
  • 115g
    All purpose flour
  • 492g
    Water, 24ºC (75ºF)
  • 14g
    salt
  • 103g
    Levain
  • 17g
    Water (for bassinage)
  • 55g
    811NV
  • 55g
    Hazelnuts, roasted
  • 90g
    Porridge
  1. Mix the Whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and water in a bowl and let it rest for 1 hour.
  2. This is called autolyse: it reduces the kneading time and increase the volume of the bread. Our goal is to have the least ingredients possible in order to better taste the flour, to knead as little as possible and to give it a longer fermentation time (maximum of 48 hours).
  3. Add the salt and levain and knead the dough for about 5 minutes on your working surface. You want to get a smooth and elastic dough with no lumps in it.
  4. Once the dough holds well together, let rest for 3 minutes on your working table. After 3 minutes, give a few kneads. Leave again for 3 minutes.
  5. Give a few more kneads until you have a good window.
  6. Then, add the bassinage, at 24ºC (75ºF) and keep kneading until it holds well. The bassinage makes your dough smoother and it allows you to add more water in your bread. We want to add enough water in the bread as it gives a good taste and texture.
  7. Let rest for 3 minutes. The dough is not yet perfect which is good as it means you have not overworked it.
  8. After 3 minutes, give a few more kneads.
  9. Let it set again for 3 minutes.
  10. Knead again. You should have a good window. This technique allows you to reduce the kneading time.
  11. When the dough is nice, put it back into the bowl. Note that your dough should not be perfect yet, as we will still work on it.
  12. Add the porridge, hazelnuts and dark chocolate.
  13. Put a damp cloth on top of the bowl. The total set time is 4 hours but there will be several folds during that period.
  14. After 20 minutes, make the first folding where you start incorporating the ingredients. Try to spread all ingredients evenly. It is better to incorporate the ingredients since the beginning to keep a better gluten network.
  15. Fold the four ends, place back the damp towel on top and let set for another 20 minutes.
  16. 20 minutes later, make the second folding.
  17. 20 minutes later, make the third folding.
  18. Then wait 90 minutes and fold.

Shaping

ingredients preparation
  • All purpose flour
  • oat flakes
  1. Sprinkle some flour onto the dough and on your working surface.
  2. Divide the dough into two pieces of 700 gr (24.7”) each.
  3. Preshape each piece in order to make the envelope tight and round. It is important when doing the preshaping, to give it a
  4. good stretch and not to tear it up on top.
  5. Sprinkle some flour on top of your pre-shaped bread and cover with a damp towel.
  6. Let it rest on your working surface at room temperature for around 10- 20 minutes.
  7. Sprinkle some flour on a cloth, on the dough and on your working surface.
  8. Place your dough on the table, roughly form a square, stretch it and shape it using the stitches technique. The stitches technique means that you cross each sides of the dough in stitches 3 times. The stitches allow the dough to have more strength.
  9. Then roll the dough tight to avoid air bubbles to form.
  10. Roll the shaped dough in the oat flakes, place it on the cloth.
  11. Let it rest for about 90 minutes at room temperature.
  12. During this time, start the pre-heating phase of the baking step.

Baking

  1. Pre-heat the oven at 250ºC (482ºF).
  2. Create an incision with a blade on top of the dough and place it in the oven.
  3. Let it bake for about 22 minutes with the oven totally close and about 5 min with the oven’s door slightly open.
  4. Make sure that the bread is well colored. Most of its taste comes from the baking step.

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