Chocolate Bread. Bread filled with Chocolate. You can’t get any simpler than that.

So who says bread has to be all about toast at breakfast and sandwiches at lunch time? Who says we can’t make it dessert? Not me, that’s for sure. With dessert being my favourite meal of the week  day, I thought why not try to make a sweet loaf of bread. It’s certainly not a new thing – think hot cross buns, fruit bread, brioche, finger buns and many, many more but I haven’t really delved into making a sweet bread before. Until now.

And I thought I’d go all out and throw in a whole load of chocolate, because, well why not? I mean CHOCOLATE. Enough said.

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So this Chocolate Bread is similar to a Chocolate Babka. I don’t know enough about Babka to claim that this is it, so I decided to stick to Chocolate Bread. I used the same easy to make, soft bread recipe that I used for this Chiko Roll Pull Apart Bread because, well firstly it’s easy but secondly it has proven itself to be a good recipe for shaping. This time round I did a braid and then shaped it into a wreath. A big, gorgeous chocolate bread wreath.

The chocolate filling is a fudge sauce that I used from a babka recipe here, then it’s covered in a  chocolate chip streusel topping.

Once it was baked, I proceeded to use the leftover fudge filling to pour over the top, because, well, CHOCOLATE!

I think you get the idea. When I made this I was particularly in the mood for chocolate.

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It turned out perfectly. It can be eaten at room temperature with a bit of butter spread over it, or you could double up the chocolate and spread it with Nutella. Yum. Definitely trying that next time. Or you can serve it warm like I did and drizzle with Chocolate Fudge Sauce – uber-yum! It’s best eaten fresh but you can also eat it the next day, toasted or warmed up.

Time to go for a run. Bye 🙂

This week last year

Salmon and Pesto Pasta
Chocolate Shortbread Sandwich Cookies
Snickers Dip

And now for the recipe.

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Chocolate Bread

Chocolate Bread. Bread filled with Chocolate. You can’t get any simpler than that.

Course Afternoon Tea, Dessert, Snack, Sweets

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 50 minutes

Servings 12

Author Marie

Ingredients

Bread Dough

• 30 g butter
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup (50g) sugar
• 7 g (1 sachet or 2 1/4 teaspoons) instant yeast
• 3 1/4 cups (420g) bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg

Fudge filling and sauce

• 1/4 cup (50g) sugar
• 1/3 cup thickened cream
• Pinch of salt
• 85 g dark chocolate (60-70%), coarsely chopped
• 56 g (1/4 cup or ½ stick) unsalted butter, diced, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Chocolate Streusal Topping

• 30 g butter, melted
• 65 g plain flour
• ¼ cup (40g) dark brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ tablespoons dark choc chips (note 1)
• 1 tablespoon cocoa (any is fine, but I used dutch processed for the dark colour) (note 1)

Instructions

For the bread dough

1. In a small saucepan over the lowest heat, melt the butter. Once it has almost all melted, add the water, milk and sugar. Stir until combined and sugar has melted (only about a minute - you just want the mixture to be luke warm, not hot). Turn the heat off and sprinkle yeast over the top, then whisk together well. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes until foamy.
2. While that is sitting, sift the flour and stir through the salt. Add the milk mixture. Mix together and then knead until smooth and elastic. You can do this by hand or in a stand mixer with a dough hook for 5-7 minutes. When the dough is smooth and elastic, place it in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Sit in a warm spot to rise for about an hour or until doubled in size.

For the fudge sauce

1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, cream and salt. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until sugar completely dissolves, about 5 minutes. Scrape mixture into a bowl. Stir in chocolate, butter and vanilla until smooth. Let cool to room temperature. Filling can be made up to a week ahead and stored, covered, in the fridge. Let come to room temperature before using.

For the streusel topping

1. Add all ingredients to a bowl and stir with a spoon until combined and forming large clumps. Pour onto a lined baking tray and place in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before crumbling into chunks.

Now to put it all together

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Line a round pizza tray with baking paper.
2. When the dough has doubled in size, punch it back and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Cut it in thirds, then roll each third out into a large rectangle about 8x12 inches
3. Spread one third with the one third of the fudge sauce and lay another layer of dough over the top. Spread with another third of the fudge sauce and lay the last layer of dough over the top. Cut the dough stack into 3 lengthways. Press the top ends together and plait the 3 lengths, then twist into a wreath and transfer to the baking tray.
4. Sprinkle the chocolate streusel over the top.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes until nicely golden on top. Turn out onto a rack and allow to cool for a few minutes, before serving.

Recipe Notes

1. I use a standard Australian 20ml tablespoon

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